LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Shelf "Taj^lJ © 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



SHAKESPEARE'S 



JULIUS CAESAR. 



INTRODUCTION, AND NOTES EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL. 



FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND CLASSES. 



Rev. HENRY N. HUDSON, 

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE SCHOOL OF ORATORY, 
BOSTON UNIVERSITY. 



BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY GINN & HEATH. 

1879. 



^ 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879, by 

Henry N. Hudson, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



disking 6° Bramhall, Printers, Boston* 



INTRODUCTION. 



History of the Play. 

JULIUS C^SAR was first printed in the folio of 1623. 
None of the plays in that inestimable volume have reached 
us with the text in a sounder and clearer state ; there beiner 
few passages that give an editor any trouble, none that are 
very troublesome. 

The Rev. Mr. Fleay, in his Shakespeare Manual, 1876, 
argues somewhat strenuously to the point that " this play, as 
we have it, is an abridgment of Shakespeare's play, made by 
Ben Jonson." In support of his theory he alleges, and truly, 
that Jonson did in fact exercise his hand more or less in al- 
tering and refitting other men's plays. He also points out 
the fact, — for such it is, — that the number of short lines or 
broken verses in Julius Ccesar is uncommonly large. And 
he cites several words and phrases, such as " quality and 
kind," "bear me hard," "chew upon this," &c, which do 
not occur elsewhere in Shakespeare ; while the same words 
and phrases, or something very like them, are met with in 
Jonson's plays. Still more to the purpose, he adduces a pas- 
sage in Act iii., scene 1, which is evidently referred to in 
Jonson's Discoveries, 1637, and which, in all probability, — 
as I think, — has been altered, perhaps by Jonson's hand, 
from what Shakespeare wrote. As the question is discussed 

3 



4 JULIUS C^SAR. 

at some length in the Critical Notes, it need not be prose- 
cuted further here. 

Such are the main particulars urged by Mr. Fleay. His 
argument shows a good deal of learned diligence ; still it 
does not, to my mind, carry any great force, certainly is far 
from being conclusive, and, as the Clarendon Editor observes, 
is " not such as the readers of Shakespeare have a right to de- 
mand." Nevertheless, as, on comparing the quarto and folio 
copies, we find that the folio has several other plays more or 
less abridged, some to the extent of whole scenes ; so I think 
it nowise improbable that, after Shakespeare's retirement 
from the stage, perhaps after his death, Julius Ccesar may 
have been subjected to the same process, and for the same 
purpose, namely, to shorten the time of representation. If 
this was done, it is altogether credible that Jonson may have 
been the .man who did it : but I fail to catch any taste of 
Jonson's style or any smack of his idiom in the play as it 
stands. So that, while conceding that he may have struck 
out more or less of Shakespeare's matter, still I am by no 
means prepared to admit that he put in any thing of his 
own ; though, possibly enough, in a few places, as in that 
already specified, he may have slightly altered Shakespeare's 
language. 

There were several other plays on the subject of Julius 
Caesar, written some before, some after, the composition of 
Shakespeare's play ; but, as no connection has been traced 
between any of these and Shakespeare's, it seems hardly worth 
the while to make any further notice of them. 

Date of the Writing. 

The time when Julius Ccesar was composed has been 
variously argued, some placing it in the middle period of 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

the Poet's labours, others among the latest ; and, as no 
clear contemporary notice or allusion had been produced, 
the question could not be positively determined. It is in- 
deed well known that the original Hamlet must have been 
written as early as 1602 ; and in iii. 2, of that play Polonius 
says, " I did enact Julius Caesar : I was killed in the Capitol ; 
Brutus killed me." As the play now in hand lays the scene 
of the stabbing in trfe Capitol, it is not improbable, to say 
the least, that the Poet had his own Julius Ccesar in mind 
when he wrote the passage in Hamlet. And that such was 
the case is made further credible by the fact, that Polonius 
speaks of himself as having enacted the part when he " play'd 
once in the University," and that in the title-page of the 
first edition of Hamlet we have the words, " As it hath been 
divers times acted by his Highness' Servants in the city of 
London ; as also in the two Universities of Cambridge and 
Oxford." Still the point cannot be affirmed with certainty ; 
for there were several earlier plays on the subject, and es- 
pecially a Latin play on Caesar's Death, which was performed 
at Oxford in 1582. 

Mr. Collier argued that Shakespeare's play must have been 
on the stage before 1603, his reason being as follows. Dray- 
ton's Mortimeriados appeared in 1596. The poem was af- 
terwards recast by the author, and published again in 1603 
as The Barons' Wars. The recast has the following lines, 
which were not in the original form of the poem : — 

Such one he was, of him we boldly say, 

In whose rich soul all sovereign powers did suit ; 

In whom in peace the elements all lay 

So mix'd, as none could sovereignty impute : 

That 't seem'd when Heaven his model first began, 

In him it show'd perfection in a man. 



6 JULIUS CLESAR. 

Here we have a striking resemblance to what Antony says of 
Brutus in the play : — 

His life was gentle ; and the elements 

So mix'd in him, that Nature might stand up 

And say to all the world, This was a man. 

Mr. Collier's theory is, that Drayton, before recasting his 
poem, had either seen the play in manuscript or heard it at 
the theatre, and so caught and copied the language of 
Shakespeare. 

I confess there does not seem to me any great strength in 
this argument ; for the idea and even the language of the 
resembling lines was so much a commonplace in the Poet's 
time, that no one could claim any special right of authorship 
in it. Nevertheless it is now pretty certain that the play 
was written as early as 1601, Mr. Halliwell having lately pro- 
duced the following from Weever's Mirror of Martyrs, which 
was printed that year : — 

The many-headed multitude were drawn 
By Brutus' speech, that Caesar was ambitious ; 
When eloquent Mark Antony had shown 
His virtues, who but Brutus then was vicious ? 

As there is nothing in the history that could have suggested 
this, we can only ascribe it to some acquaintance with the 
play : so that the passage may be justly regarded as decisive 
of the question. 

The style alone of the drama led me to rest in about the 
same conclusion long ago. And I the rather make some- 
thing of this matter, because it involves a good exercise of 
mind in discriminating the Poet's different styles ; which is 
a very nice art indeed, and therefore apt to render the per- 
ceptions delicate and acute. It has been said that a true 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

tastejpr Shakespeare is like the creation of a special sense ; j 
and this saying is nowhere better approved than in reference 
to his subtile variations of language and style. For he began 
with what may be described as a preponderance of the poetic 
element over the dramatic. As we trace his course onward, 
we may, I think, discover a gradual rising of the latter ele- 
ment into greater strength and prominence, until at last it 
had the former in complete subjection. Now, where positive 
external evidence is wanting, it is mainly from the relative . 
strength of these elements that I argue the probable date of 
the writing. And it seems to me that in Julius Ccesar the 
diction is more gliding and continuous, and the imagery 
more round and amplified, than in the dramas known to have 
been of the Poet's latest period. 

But these distinctive notes are of a nature to be more 
easily felt than described ; and to make them felt examples 
will best serve. Take, then, a sentence from the soliloquy 
of Brutus just after he has pledged himself to the con- 
spiracy : — 

'Tis a common proof, 
That lowliness is young ambition's ladder, 
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face ; 
But, when he once attains the upmost round, 
He then unto the ladder turns his back, . 

Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees 
By which he did ascend. 

Here we have a full, rounded period ' in which all the ele- 
ments seem to have been adjusted, and the whole expres- 
sion set in order, before any part of it was written down. 
The beginning foresees the end, the end remembers the be- 
ginning, and the thought and image are evolved together in 
an even continuous flow. The thing is indeed perfect in 
its way, still it is not in Shakespeare's latest and highest 



8 JULIUS CiESAR. 

style. Now compare with this a passage from The Winter's 

Tale : — 

When you speak, sweet, 
I'd have you do it ever : when you sing, 
I'd have you buy and sell so ; so give alms ; 
Pray so ; and for the ordering your affairs, 
To sing them too : when you do dance, I wish you 
A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do 
Nothing but that ; move still, still so, and own 
No other function. 

Here the workmanship seems to make arid shape itself as it 
goes along, thought kindling thought, and image prompting 
image, and each part neither concerning itself with what has 
gone before, nor what is coming after. The very sweetness 
has a certain piercing quality, and we taste it from clause to 
clause, almost from word to word, as so many keen darts of 
poetic rapture shot forth in rapid succession, yet the passage, 
notwithstanding its swift changes of imagery and motion, is 
perfect in unity and continuity. 

Such is, I believe, a fair illustration of what has long been 
familiar to me as the supreme excellence of Shakespeare's 
ripest, strongest, and most idiomatic style. Antony and Cleo- 
patra is pre-eminently rich in this quality ; but there is enough 
of it in The Tempest, The Winter's Tale, Coriolanus, and 
Cymbeline, to identify them as belonging to the same stage 
and period of authorship. But I can find hardly so much as 
an earnest of it in Julius Ccesar ; and nothing short of very 
strong positive evidence would induce me to class this drama 
with those, as regards the time of writing. 

Historical Sources. 

The historic materials of this play were drawn from The 
Life of Julius Ccesar, The Life of Marcus Brutus, and The 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

Life of Marcus Antonius, as set forth in Sir Thomas North's 
translation of Plutarch. This work, aptly described by War- 
ton as " Shakespeare's storehouse of learned history," was 
first printed in 1579, and reprinted in 1595, 1603, and 161 2, 
not to mention several later editions. The translation was 
avowedly made, not directly from the Greek, but from the 
French version of Jaques Amyot, Bishop of Auxerre. The 
book is among our richest and freshest literary monuments 
of that age ; and, apart from the use made of it by Shake- 
speare, is in itself an invaluable repertory of honest, manly, 
idiomatic Elizabethan English. A selection, embracing such 
portions of the work as specially illustrate Shakespeare's plays, 
has lately been published, with learned and appropriate edi- 
torial furnishings, by the Rev. Walter W. Skeat, M.A. "This 
has been of great service to me in preparing the present 
edition. 

No abstract, nor any extracts, of the Plutarchian matter 
need be furnished here, as nearly all the passages drawn 
upon for the play are given in the foot-notes. Suffice it to 
say, that in most of the leading incidents the charming old 
Greek is minutely followed ; though in divers cases those in- 
cidents are worked out with surpassing fertility of invention 
and art. But, besides this, in many places the Plutarchian 
form and order of thought, and also the very words of North's 
racy and delectable old English, are retained, with such an 
embalming for immortality as Shakespeare alone could give. 
— It may be well to add, that on the 13th of February, 
B.C. 44, the feast of Lupercalia was held, when the crown 
was offered to Caesar by Antony. On the 15th of March fol- 
lowing, Caesar was slain. In November, B.C. 43, the Trium- 
virs, Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus, met on a small island 
near Bononia, and there made up their bloody proscription. 



IO JULIUS CAESAR.' 

The overthrow of Brutus and Cassius near Philippi took 
place in the Fall of the next year. So that the events of the 
drama cover a period of something over two years and a 
half. 

The Play rightly Named. 

It has been justly observed that Shakespeare shows much 
judgment in the naming of his plays. From this observa- 
tion, however, several critics, as Gildon and Schlegel, have 
excepted the play in hand, pronouncing the title a misnomer, 
on the ground that Brutus, and not Caesar, is the hero of it. 
It is indeed true that Brutus is the hero ; nevertheless, I must 
insist upon it that the play is rightly named, inasmuch as 
Caesar is not only the subject but also the governing power 
of it throughout. He is the centre and spring-head of the 
entire action, giving law and shape to every thing that is said 
and done. This is manifestly true in what occurs before his 
death ; and it is true in a still deeper sense afterwards, since 
his genius then becomes the Nemesis or retributive Provi- 
dence, presiding over the whole course of the drama. 

The Caesar of Shakespeare. 

The characterization of this drama in some of the parts is, 
I confess, not a little perplexing to me. I do not feel quite 
sure as to the temper of mind in which the Poet conceived 
some of the persons, or why he should have given them the 
aspect they wear in the play. For instance, Caesar is far 
from being himself in these scenes ; hardly one of the 
speeches put into his mouth can be regarded as historically 
characteristic ; taken all together, they are little short of a 
downright caricature. As here represented, he is indeed lit- 
tle better than a grand, strutting piece of puff-paste ; and 



INTRODUCTION. II 

when he speaks, it is very much in the 'style of a glorious va- 
pourer and braggart, full of lofty airs and mock-thunder ; 
than which nothing could be further from the truth of the 
man, whose character, even in his faults, was as compact and 
solid as adamant, and at the same time as limber and duc- 
tile as the finest gold. Certain critics have seized and 
worked upon this, as proving that Shakespeare must have 
been very green in classical study, or else very careless in the 
use of his authorities. To my thinking it proves neither the 
one nor the other. 

It is true, Caesar's ambition was indeed gigantic, but none 
too much so, I suspect, for the mind it dwelt in ; for his 
character in all its features was gigantic. And no man ever 
framed his ambition more in sympathy with the great forces 
of Nature, or built it upon a deeper foundation of political 
wisdom and insight. Now this "last infirmity of noble 
minds " is the only part of him that the play really sets be- 
fore us ; and even this we do not see as it was, because it is 
here severed from the constitutional peerage of his gifts and 
virtues ; all those transcendant qualities which placed him at 
the summit of Roman intellect and manhood being either 
withheld from the scene, or thrown so far into the back- 
ground, that the proper effect of them is mainly lost. 

Yet we have ample proof that Shakespeare understood 
Caesar thoroughly ; and that he regarded him as " the no- 
blest man that ever lived in the tide of times." For exam- 
ple, in Hamlet, he makes Horatio, who is one of his calmest 
and most right-thinking characters, speak of him as " the 
mightiest Julius." In A?ito?iy and Cleopatra, again, the 
heroine is made to describe him as " broad-fronted Caesar." 
And in King Richard the Third, the young Prince utters 
these lines : — 



12 JULIUS CAESAR. 

That Julius Caesar was a famous man : 
With what his valour did enrich his wit, 
His wit set down to make his valour live : 
Death makes no conquest of this conqueror. 

In fact, we need not go beyond Shakespeare to gather that 
Julius Caesar's was the deepest, the most versatile, and most 
multitudinous head that ever figured in the political affairs of 
mankind. 

Indeed, it is clear from this play itself that the Poet's course 
did not proceed at all from ignorance or misconception of 
the man. For it is remarkable that, though Caesar delivers 
himself so out of character, yet others, both foes and friends, 
deliver him much nearer the truth ; so that, while we see 
almost nothing of him directly, we nevertheless get, upon 
the whole, a pretty just reflection of him. Especially, in the 
marvellous speeches of Antony and in the later events of the 
drama, both his inward greatness and his right of mastership 
over the Roman world are fully vindicated. For, in the play 
as in the history, Caesar's blood just hastens and cements 
the empire which the conspirators thought to prevent. They 
soon find that in the popular sympathies, and even in their 
own dumb remorses, he has " left behind powers that will 
work for him." He proves indeed far mightier in death 
than in life ; as if his spirit were become at once the guard- 
ian angel of his cause and an avenging angel to his foes. 

And so it was in fact. For nothing did so much to set 
the people in love with royalty, both name and thing, as the 
reflection that their beloved Caesar, the greatest of their 
national heroes, the crown and consummation of Roman 
genius and character, had been murdered for aspiring to it. 
Thus their hereditary aversion to kingship was all subdued 
by the remembrance of how and why their Caesar fell ; and 



INTRODUCTION. 1 3 

they who, before, would have plucked out his heart rather 
than he should wear a crown, would now have plucked out 
their own, to set a crown upon his head. Such is the natural 
result, when the intensities of admiration and compassion 
meet together in the human breast. 

From all which it may well be thought that Caesar was too 
great for the hero of a drama, since his greatness, if brought 
forward in full measure, would leave no room for any thing 
else, at least would preclude any proper dramatic balance 
and equipoise. It was only as a sort of underlying potency, 
or a force withdrawn into the background, that his presence 
was compatible with that harmony and reciprocity of several 
characters which a well-ordered drama requires. At all 
events, it is pretty clear that, where he was, such figures as 
Brutus and Cassius could never be very considerable, save 
as his assassins. They would not have been heard of in 
after-times, if they had not " struck the foremost man of all 
this world " ; in other words, the great sun of Rome had to be 
shorn of his beams, else so ineffectual a fire as Brutus could 
nowise catch the eye. 

Be this as it may, I have no doubt that Shakespeare knew 
the whole height and compass of Caesar's vast and varied 
capacity. And I sometimes regret that he did not render 
him as he evidently saw him, inasmuch as he alone perhaps 
of all the men who ever wrote could have given an adequate 
expression of that colossal man. 

I have sometimes thought that the policy of the drama 
may have been to represent Caesar, not as he was indeed, 
but as he must have appeared to the conspirators ; to make 
us see him as they saw him ; in order that they too might 
have fair and equal judgment at our hands. For Caesar was 
literally too great to be seen by them, save as children often 



14 JULIUS CAESAR. 

see bugbears by moonlight, when their inexperienced eyes 
are mocked with air. And the Poet may well have judged 
that the best way to set us right towards them was by identi- 
fying us more or less with them in mental position, and 
making us share somewhat in their delusion. For there is 
scarce any thing wherein we are so apt to err as in reference 
to the characters of men when time has settled and cleared 
up the questions in which they lost. their way: we blame 
them for not 'having seen as we see; while, in truth, the 
things that are so bathed in light to us were full of darkness 
to them ; and we should have understood them better, had 
we been in the dark along with them. 

Caesar indeed was not bewildered by the political questions 
of his time ) but all the rest were, and therefore he seemed 
so to them ; and while their own heads were swimming they 
naturally ascribed his seeming bewilderment to a dangerous 
intoxication. As for his marvellous career of success, they 
attributed this mainly to his good luck ; such being the com- 
mon refuge of inferior minds when they would escape the 
sense of their inferiority. Hence, as generally happens with 
the highest order of men, his greatness had to wait the ap- 
proval of later events. He indeed, far beyond any other 
man of his age, "looked into the seeds of time " ; but this 
was not nor could be known, till time had developed those 
seeds into their fruits. • Why, then, may not the Poet's idea 
have been, so to order things that the full strength of the 
man should not appear in the play, as it did not in fact, till 
after his fall ? This view, I am apt to think, will both explain 
and justify the strange disguise — a sort of falsetto greatness 
— under which Caesar exhibits himself. 

Now the seeming contradiction between Caesar as known 
and Caesar as rendered by Shakespeare is what, more than 



INTRODUCTION. 1 5 

any thing else in the drama, perplexes me. But there is, I 
think, a very refined, subtile, and peculiar irony pervading 
this, more than any other of the Poet's plays ; not intended 
as such, indeed, by the speakers, but a sort of historic irony, 
— - the irony of Providence, so to speak, or, if you please, 
of Fate ; much the same as is implied in the proverb, " A 
haughty spirit goes before a fall." This irony crops out in 
many places. Thus we have Caesar most blown with arro- 
gance and godding it in the loftiest style when the daggers 
of the assassins are on the very point of leaping at him. So 
too, all along, we find Brutus most confident in those very 
things where he is most at fault, or acting like a man " most 
ignorant of what he's most assured " ; as when he says that 
" Antony can do no more than Caesar's arm when Caesar's 
head is off." This, to be sure, is not meant ironically by 
him ; but it is turned into irony by the fact that Antony 
soon tears the cause of the conspirators all to pieces with his 
tongue. But indeed this sort of honest guile runs all through 
the piece as a perfusive and permeating efficacy. A still bet- 
ter instance of it occurs just after the murder, when the chiefs 
of the conspiracy are exulting in the transcendant virtue and 
beneficence of their deed, and in its future stage celebrity ; 
alnd Cassius says, — 

So often shall the knot of us be call'd 
The men that gave their country liberty ; 

and again, a little later, when Brutus says of Antony, "I 
know that we shall have him well to friend." Not indeed 
that the men themselves thought any irony in those speeches : 
it was natural, no doubt, that they should utter such things 
in all seriousness ; but what they say is interpreted into 
irony by the subsequent events. And when such a shallow 



1 6 JULIUS CjESAR. 

idealist as Brutus is made to overtop and outshine the great- 
est practical genius the world ever saw, what is it but a re- 
fined and subtile irony at work on a much larger scale, and 
diffusing itself, secretly, it may be, but not the less vitally, 
into the texture? It was not the frog that thought irony, 
when he tried to make himself as big as the ox ; but there 
was a pretty decided spice of irony in the mind that con- 
ceived the fable. 

It is to be noted further, that Brutus uniformly speaks . of 
Caesar with respect, almost indeed with admiration. It is his 
ambition, not his greatness, that Brutus resents ; the thought 
that his own consequence is impaired by Caesar's elevation 
having no influence with him. With Cassius, on the con- 
trary, impatience of his superiority is the ruling motive : he 
is all the while thinking of the disparagement he suffers by 
Caesar's exaltation. 

This man 
Is now become a god ; and Cassius is 
A wretched creature, and must bend his body, 
If Caesar carelessly but nod on him. 

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world 
Like a Colossus ; and we petty men 
Walk under his huge legs. 

Thus he overflows with mocking comparisons, and finds his 
pastime in flouting at Caesar as having managed, by a sham 
heroism, to hoodwink the world. 

And yet the Poet makes Caesar characterize himself very 
much as Cassius, in his splenetic temper, describes him. 
Caesar gods it in his talk, as if on purpose to approve the 
style in which Cassius mockingly gods him. This, taken 
by itself, would look as if the Poet sided with Cassius; yet 
one can hardly help feeling that he sympathized rather in 



INTRODUCTION. 1 7 

Antony's great oration. And the sequel, as we have seen, 
justifies Antony's opinion of Caesar. Thus, it seems to me, 
the subsequent course of things Jias the effect of inverting 
the mockery of Cassius against himself; as much as to say, 
" You have made fine work with your ridding the world of 
great Caesar : since your daggers pricked the gas out of him, 
you see what a grand humbug he was." 

In sober truth, the final issue of the conspiracy, as repre- 
sented by Shakespeare, is a pretty conclusive argument of 
the blunder, not to say the crime, of its authors. Csesar, 
dead, tears them and their cause all to pieces. In effect, 
they did but stab him into a mightier life ; so that Brutus 
might well say, as indeed he does at last, — 

O Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet ! 

Thy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swords 

In our own proper entrails. 

Am I wrong, then, in regarding the Nemesis which asserts 
itself so sternly in the latter part of the play, as a reflex of 
irony on some of the earlier scenes? I the rather take this 
view, inasmuch as it infers the disguise of Caesar to be an in- 
stance of the profound guile with which Shakespeare some- 
times plays upon his characters, humouring their bent, and 
then leaving them to the discipline of events.* 

* Julius Caesar is indeed protagonist of the tragedy : but it is not the 
Caesar whose bodily presence is weak, whose mind is declining in strength 
and sure-footed energy, — the Caesar who stands exposed to all the acci- 
dents of fortune. It is the spirit of Caesar which is the dominant power of 
the tragedy : against this — the spirit of Caesar — Brutus fought ; but Bru- 
tus, who for ever errs in practical politics, succeeded only in striking down 
Caesar's body : he who had been weak now rises as pure spirit, strong and 
terrible, and avenges himself upon the conspirators. The contrast between 
the weakness of Caesar's bodily presence in the first half of the play, and the 
might of his spiritual presence in the latter half, is emphasized and perhaps 



1 8 JULIUS CAESAR. 



The Caesar of History. 

Merivale justly affirms 'Julius Caesar to be " the greatest 
name in history." And I believe the general verdict of man- 
kind pronounces him at once the greatest soldier and the 
greatest statesman of the world. In oratory, also, he is 
acknowledged to have stood second only to Cicero at the 
time ; while, as an author, he ranks among the best and 
highest of our Latin classics. Therewithal "he was a perfect 
gentleman ; and of the world's great military conquerors he 
is probably the only one to whom that title can be justly ap- 
plied. All the sweetness of humanity seems to have been 
concentrated in his native temper and disposition- Nor were 
his virtues less eminent than his talents and genius ; while 
the immense power to which he attained served, apparently, 
but to give his virtues larger scope and render "them more 
conspicuous : so that his rightful seat is among the loveliest, 
the largest-hearted, the .most magnanimous of men. 

Julius Caesar loved Rome, too, at least as well as any of 
his haters did, and loved her a thousand times more wisely. 
But it was his peculiar lot, perhaps I should rather say his 
special mission, to contend — alone and single-handed in the 
fore-front, though, to be sure, with the great body of the Ro- 
man people at his back — with the proudest, the powerfullest, 

over-emphasized by Shakespeare. It was the error of Brutus that he failed 
to perceive wherein lay the true Caesarean power, and acted with short- 
sighted eagerness and violence. Mark Antony, over the dead body of his 
lord, announces what is to follow : " Over thy wounds now do I prophesy," 
&c. The ghost of Caesar, which appears on the night before the battle of 
Philippi, serves as a kind of visible symbol of the vast posthumous power 
of the Dictator. Finally, the little effort of the aristocrat republicans sinks 
to the ground, foiled and crushed by the force which they had hoped to 
abolish by one violent blow. — DOWDEN. 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

and the wickedest oligarchy that ever afflicted the world. This 
senatorial faction, small in number, but terrible in malignant 
activity, were, and long had been, intent on prostituting all 
the powers of the Roman State to their own base, selfish, sin- 
ister ends : with a few individual exceptions, they seemed to 
cherish the illustrious traditions of their country only as a 
license for their atrocious cupidity and lust. They could not 
be made to comprehend that either the foreign nations 
whom they conquered or the other classes of their own na- 
tion had any rights which they were bound to respect : prac- 
tically at least, as the thing stood to their mind, all other 
men were created but for the one sole purpose that they 
might fleece them, plunder them, prey upon them. And 
they, they it was who were slowly murdering the liberties and 
the Constitution of their country, by their hideous corruption, 
avarice, profligacy, rapacity, inhumanity. From the very 
outset of his public career, Caesar deliberately set his whole 
mind and bent all his matchless energies to the work of 
rescuing so much of the liberty and Constitution of old Rome 
as it was yet possible to save from the stanchless greed, the 
remorseless tyranny, the monstrous sensuality, which were ren- 
dering the Roman name an intolerable stench in the nostrils 
of Heaven and Earth. Such as they were, Caesar wrestled 
with them many a long year, till he finally outwrestled and 
overthrew them, and thereby delivered the groaning nations 
from their dreadful misrule. When they could no longer 
meet him in open fight, they found him as wise and merci- 
ful in peace as he had been heroic and irresistible in war ; so 
that no means were left them for putting him down but those 
which they used at last, — smiles concealing daggers, kisses, 
to make way for stabs. 

In the process of his work, this mighty man approved him- 



20 JULIUS CESAR. 

self to be in no sort a philosophic enthusiast or patriotic 
dreamer. With his clear, healthy, practical mind, which no 
ideal or sentimental infatuation could get hold of, he stood 
face to face with men and things as they were. It was not 
in his line therefore to bid old " Time run back and fetch 
the age of gold." He knew — he would not have been 
Julius Caesar if he had not known — that it was both criminal 
and weak to suppose that the great wicked Rome of his day 
was to be crushed back into the smaller and better Rome of 
a bygone age. If he sought to imperialize the State, and 
himself at its head, it was because he knew that Rome, as 
she then was, must have a master, and that himself was the 
the fittest man for that office. We can all now see, what he 
alone saw then, that the great social and political forces of 
the Roman world had long been moving and converging 
irresistibly to that end. He was not to be deluded with the 
hope of reversing or postponing the issue of such deep-work- 
ing causes. The great danger of the time lay in struggling 
to keep up a republic in show, when they already had an 
empire in fact. And Csesar's statesmanship was of that high 
and comprehensive reach which knows better than to outface 
political necessities with political theories. For it is an axiom 
in government, no less than in science, that Nature will not 
be the servant of men who are too brain-sick or too proud 
to perceive and respect her laws. The only mode of induc- 
ing her powers to work for us is by learning their terms and 
letting them have their own way. There is nothing in which 
this holds more true than in respect of those vast moral ener- 
gies which evolve and shape the life of States and empires ; 
and which no conscious power of man can prevent, because 
their working is so deep and silent as not to be known, till 
the results are fully prepared. Here, indeed, man's best 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

strength is a confession of his impotence. Great Caesar un- 
derstood this matter thoroughly in reference to the political 
state of his time ; and his ambition, if that be the right name 
for it, was but the instinct of a supreme administrative faculty 
for administrative modes and powers answerable to the exi- 
gency. The most sagacious and far-seeing of political re- 
formers, he was also, his enemies themselves being judges, 
the most gentle and benignant of civil rulers. Great faults 
he had indeed, measured by our standard ; but his worst 
vices were, in all rational and human account, preferable to 
the best public virtues of his stabbers. 

As the foregoing view of Caesar and his assassins does not 
tally at all points with the one commonly held, and as it may 
appear to some rather paradoxical, I subjoin the judgments 
of two learned and judicious authors, to show that I am not 
altogether singular. The first is from Merivale's History of 
the Romans under the Empire : — 

" While other illustrious men have been reputed great for 
their excellence in some one department of human genius, it 
was declared by the concurrent voice of antiquity, that Caesar 
was excellent in all. He had genius, understanding, memory, 
taste, reflection, industry, and exactness. ' He was great,' 
repeats a modern writer, ' in every thing he undertook ; as a 
captain, a statesman, a lawgiver, a jurist, an orator, a poet, 
an historian, a grammarian, a mathematician, and an archi- 
tect.' The secret of his manifold excellence was discovered 
by Pliny in the unparalleled energy of his intellectual powers, 
which he could devote without distraction to several objects 
at once, or rush at any moment from one occupation to 
another with the abruptness and rapidity of lightning. Caesar 
could be writing and reading, dictating and listening, all at 
the same time ; he was wont to occupy four amanuenses at 



2 2 JULIUS CAESAR. 

once ; and had been known, on occasions, to employ as 
many as seven together. And, as if to complete the picture 
of the most perfect specimen of human ability, we are assured 
that in all the exercises of the camp his vigour and skill were 
not less conspicuous. He fought at the most perilous mo- 
ments in the ranks of the soldiers ; he could manage his 
charger without the use of reins ; and he saved his life at 
Alexandria by his address in the art of swimming." 

The following is from a recent history of Rome by Dr. 
Leonard Schmitz, of Edinburgh : " The death of Caesar was 
an irreparable loss, not only to the Roman people, but to 
the whole civilized world ; for the Republic was utterly 
ruined, and no earthly power could restore it. Caesar's 
death involved the State in fresh struggles and civil wars 
for many a year, until in the end it fell again (and this was 
the best that, under the circumstances, could have hap- 
pened to it) under the supremacy of Augustus, who had 
neither the talent, nor the will, nor the power, to carry out 
all the beneficial plans which his great-uncle had formed. 
It has been truly said, that the murder of Caesar was the 
most senseless act the Romans ever committed. Had it 
been possible at all to restore the Republic, it would un- 
avoidably have fallen into the hands of a most profligate 
aristocracy ; who would have sought nothing but their own 
aggrandizement; would have demoralized the people still 
more ; and would have established their own greatness upon 
the ruins of their country. It is only necessary to recollect 
the latter years of the Republic, the depravity and corrup- 
tion of the ruling classes, the scenes of violence and blood- 
shed which constantly occurred in the streets of Rome, to 
render it evident to every one that peace and security could 
not be restored, except by the strong hand of a sovereign ; 



INTRODUCTION. 23 

and the Roman world would have been fortunate indeed, if 
it had submitted to the mild and beneficent sway of Caesar." 

The Brutus of Shakespeare. 

Coleridge, has a shrewd doubt as to what sort of a charac- 
ter the Poet meant his Brutus to be. For, in his thinking 
aloud just after the breaking of the conspiracy to him, Brutus 
avowedly grounds his purpose, not on any thing Caesar has 
done, nor on what he is, but simply on what he may become 
when crowned. He " knows no personal cause to spurn at 
him " ; nor has he " known when his affections sway'd more 
than his reason " : but " he would be crown'd : how that 
might change his nature, there's the question " ; and, 

since the quarrel 
Will bear no colour for the thing he is, 
Fashion it thus, — that what he is, augmented, 
Would run to these and these extremities ; 
And therefore think him as a serpent's egg, 
And kill him in the shell. 

So then, Brutus heads a plot to assassinate the man who, be- 
sides being clothed with the sanctions of law as the highest 
representative of the State, has been his personal friend and 
benefactor ; all this, too, not on any ground of fact, but on 
an assumed probability that the crown will prove a sacra- 
ment of evil, and transform him into quite another man. A 
strange piece of casuistry indeed ! but nowise unsuited to 
the spirit of a man who was to commit the gravest of crimes, 
purely from a misplaced virtue. 

And yet the character of Brutus is full of beauty and 
sweetness. In all the relations of life he is upright, gentle, 
and pure ; of a sensitiveness and delicacy of principle that 
cannot bosom the slightest stain ; his mind enriched and 



24 JULIUS C^SAR. 

fortified with the best extractions of philosophy ; a man 
adorned with all the virtues which, in public and private, 
at home and in the circle of friends, win respect and charm 
the heart. 

Being such a man, of course he could only do what he did 
under some sort of delusion. And so indeed it is. Yet this 
very delusion serves, apparently, to ennoble and beautify him, 
as it takes him and works upon him through his virtues. At 
heart he is a real patriot, every inch of him. But his patri- 
otism, besides being somewhat hidebound with patrician 
pride, is of the speculative kind, and dwells, where his whole 
character has been chiefly formed, in a world of poetical and 
philosophic ideals. He is an enthusiastic student of books. 
Plato is his favourite teacher ; and he has studiously framed 
his life and tuned his thoughts to the grand and pure con- 
ceptions won from that all but divine source : Plato's genius 
walks with him in the Senate, sits with him at the fireside, 
goes with him to the wars, and still hovers about his tent. 

His great fault, then, lies in supposing it his duty to be 
meddling with things that he does not understand. Con- 
scious of high thoughts and just desires, but with no gift of 
practical insight, he is ill fitted to " grind among the iron 
facts of life." In truth, he does not really see where he is ; 
the actual circumstances and tendencies amidst which he 
lives are as a book written in a language he cannot read. 
The characters of those who act with him are too far below 
the region of his principles and habitual thinkings for him to 
take the true cast of them. Himself incapable of such mo- 
tives as govern them, he just projects and suspends his ideals 
in them, and then misreckons upon them as realizing the 
men of his own brain. So, also, he. clings to the idea of the 
great and free republic of his fathers, the old Rome that has 



INTRODUCTION. 25 

ever stood to his feelings touched with the consecrations 
of time, and glorified with the high virtues that have grown 
up under her cherishing. But, in the long reign of tearing 
faction and civil butchery, that which he worships has been 
substantially changed, the reality lost. Caesar, already clothed 
with the title and the power of Imperator for life, would change 
the form so as to agree with the substance, the name so as to 
fit the thing. But Brutus is so filled with the idea of that 
which has thus passed away never to return, that he thinks 
to save or recover the whole by preventing such formal and 
nominal change. 

And so his whole course is that of one acting on his own 
ideas, not on the facts that are before and around him. 
Indeed he does not see them ; he merely dreams his own 
meaning into them. He is swift to do that by which he 
thinks his country ought to be benefited. As the killing of 
Caesar stands in his purpose, he and his associates are to be 
" sacrificers, not butchers." But, in order to any such effect 
as he hopes for, his countrymen generally must regard the 
act in the same light as he intends it. That they will do this, 
is the very thing which he has in fact no reason to conclude ; 
notwithstanding, because it is so in his idea, therefore he 
trusts that the conspirators will " be called purgers, not mur- 
derers." Meanwhile the plain truth is, that, if his country- 
men had been capable of regarding the deed as a sacrifice, 
they would not have made nor permitted any occasion for 
it. It is certain that unless so construed the act must prove 
fruitful of evil : all Rome is full of things proving that it can- 
not be so construed ; but this is what Brutus has no eye to 
see. 

So too, in his oration " to show the reason of our Caesar's 
death," he speaks, in calm and dispassionate manner, just 



26 JULIUS C^SAR. 

those things which he thinks ought to set the people right, 
and himself right in their eyes ; forgetting all the while that 
the deed cannot fail to make the people mad, and that pop- 
ular madness is not a thing to be reasoned with. And for 
the same cause he insists on sparing Antony, and on permit- 
ting him to speak in Caesar's funeral. To do otherwise 
would be unjust, and so would overthrow the whole nature 
of the enterprise as it lives in his mind. And, because in 
his idea it ought so to be, he trusts that Antony will make 
Caesar's death the occasion of strengthening those who killed 
him ; not perceiving the strong likelihood, which soon passes 
into a fact, that in cutting off Caesar they have taken away 
the only check on Antony's ambition. He ought to have 
foreseen that Antony, instead of being drawn to their side, 
would rather make love to Caesar's place at their expense. 

Thus the course of Brutus serves no end but to set on foot 
another civil war, which naturally hastens and assures the 
very thing he sought to prevent. He confides in the good- 
ness of his cause, not considering that the better the cause, 
the worse its chance with bad men. He thinks it safe to 
trust others, because he knows they can safely trust him ; 
the singleness of his own eye causing him to believe that 
others will see as he sees, the purity of his own heart, that 
others will feel as he feels. 

Here then we have a strong instance of a very good man 
doing a very bad thing ; and, withal, of a wise man acting 
most unwisely, because his wisdom knew not its place ; a 
right noble, just, heroic spirit bearing directly athwart the 
virtues he worships. On the whole, it is not wonderful that 
Brutus should have exclaimed, as he is said to have done, 
that he had worshipped Virtue, and found her at last but a 
shade. So worshipped, she may well prove a shade indeed ! 



INTRODUCTION. 27 

Admiration of the man's character, reprobation of his pro- 
ceedings, — which of these is the stronger with us ? And 
there is, I think, much the same irony in the representation 
of Brutus as in that of Caesar ; only the order of it is here 
reversed. As if one should say, u O yes, yes ! in the prac- 
tical affairs of mankind your charming wisdom of the closet 
will doubtless put to shame the workings of mere practical 
insight and sagacity." 

Shakespeare's exactness in the minutest details of char- 
acter is well shown in the speech already referred to ; which 
is the utterance of a man philosophizing most unphilosophi- 
cally ; as if the Academy should betake itself to the stump, 
and this too without any sense of the incongruity. Plu- 
tarch has a short passage which served as a hint, not indeed 
for the matter, but for the style of that speech. " They do 
note," says he, " that in some of his epistles he counterfeited 
that brief compendious manner of the Lacedaemonians. As, 
when the war was begun, he wrote to the Pergamenians in this 
sort : ' I understand you have given Dolabella money : if 
you have done it willingly, you confess you have offended 
me ; if against your wills, show it by giving me willingly.' 
This was Brutus 's manner of letters, which were honoured for 
their briefness." The speech in question is far enough in- 
deed from being a model of style either for oratory or any 
thing else ; but it is finely characteristic ; while its studied 
primness and epigrammatic finish contrast most unfavourably 
with the frank-hearted yet artful eloquence of Antony. 

And what a rare significance attaches to the brief scene of 
Brutus and his drowsy boy Lucius in camp a little before the 
catastrophe ! There, in the deep of the night, long after all 
the rest have lost themselves in sleep, and when the anxie- 
ties of the issue are crowding upon him, — there we have the 



28 JULIUS CESAR. 

earnest, thoughtful Brutus hungering intensely for the repasts 
of treasured thought. 

Look, Lucius, here's the book I sought for so ; 
I put it in the pocket of my gown. 

What the man is, and where he ought to be, is all signified 
in these two lines. And do we not taste a dash of benig- 
nant irony in the implied repugnance between the spirit of 
the man and the stuff of his present undertaking ? The idea 
of a bookworm riding the whirlwind of war ! The thing is 
most like Brutus ; but how out of his element, how unsphered 
from his right place, it shows him ! There is a touch of 
drollery in the contrast, which the richest steeping of poetry 
does not disguise. I fancy the Poet to have been in a 
bland intellectual smile, as he wrote that strain of loving ear- 
nestness in which the matter is delivered. And the irony is 
all the more delectable for being so remote and unpro- 
nounced ; like one of those choice arrangements in the back- 
ground of a painting, which, without attracting conscious no- 
tice, give a zest and relish to what stands in front. The 
scene, whether for charm of sentiment or felicity of concep- 
tion, is one of the finest in Shakespeare. Here too he had 
a hint from Plutarch : " Whilst Brutus was in the war, and 
his head over-busily occupied, having slumbered a little 
after supper, he spent the rest of the night in dispatching 
his weightiest causes ; and if he had any leisure left, he 
would read some book till the third watch of the night." I 
must add a part of what Brutus says when Lucius falls asleep 
in the midst of his song : — 

This is a sleepy tune. — O murderous slumber! 
Lay'st thou thy leaden mace upon my boy 
That plays thee music ? — Gentle knave, good night; 
I will not do thee so much wrong to wake thee : 



INTRODUCTION. 29 

If thou dost nod, thou break'st thy instrument; 
I'll take it from thee; and, good boy, good night. — 
Let me see, let me see : is not the leaf turn'd down, 
Where I left reading ? Here it is, I think. 

It is but right to add that, in the war between Pompey 
and Caesar, Brutus, after much vacillation, sided with the 
former; and, when Pompey's cause was wrecked at Phar- 
salia, he was one of the first to throw himself on Caesar's 
clemency ; who thereupon took him to his bosom ; thus be- 
having with that mixture of far-sightedness and kind-heart- 
edness which is rightly called magnanimity ; and as thinking 
it nobler to charm the hostility out of his enemies than to 
make them feel his power. These facts, to be sure, are not 
brought forward in the play, but the sense of them is ; and 
this too in a way that tells powerfully against the course of 
Brutus. 

Such, to my apprehension, is the Brutus of Shakespeare. 
But the Brutus of history was neither so immaculate in pur- 
pose nor so amiable in temper as the Poet's delineation may 
lead us to suppose. Merivale, who is among the calmest, 
fairest, and solidest of English historians, has the following 
in reference to him : — 

" He was the son of a father of the same name, who had 
been a prominent supporter of the Marian party, and finally 
lost his life by rashly joining in the enterprise of Lepidus. 
His mother Servilia was half-sister to Marcus Cato, and ap- 
pears to have been a woman of strong character and more 
than usual attainments. He was born only fifteen years later 
than Caesar himself. But Caesar's intimacy with Servilia was, 
it may be presumed, a principal cause of the marked favour 
with which he distinguished her offspring. 

" The elder Brutus being cut off prematurely, when his son 



30 JULIUS CESAR. 

was only eight years of age, the care of his education 
passed into the hands* of his uncle Cato ; and the youth be- 
came early initiated in the maxims of the Stoic philosophy, 
and learned to regard his preceptor, whose daughter Portia 
he married, as the purest model of practical and abstract 
virtue. But, together with many honourable and noble sen- 
timents, he imbibed also from him that morose strictness in 
the exaction as well as the discharge of legal obligations 
which, while it is often mistaken for a guaranty of probity, 
is not incompatible with actual laxity of principle. 

"Accordingly, we find that while, on the one hand, he 
refrained as a provincial officer from extorting by fraud or 
violence the objects of his cupidity, he was, on the other, 
not the less unscrupulous in demanding exorbitant interest 
for loans advanced to the natives, and enforcing payment with 
rigid pertinacity. His base transactions with the magistrates 
of Salamis, as also with Ariobarzanes, King of Cappadocia, 
are detailed in Cicero's correspondence with Atticus. It was 
some years after his residence in Cyprus that he commissioned 
a person named Scaptius to collect his debts with their ac- 
cumulated interest. He allowed his agent to urge the most 
questionable interpretations of the law, and to enforce a rate of 
interest beyond what Cicero considered either legal or equita- 
ble. Scaptius, in his zeal for his employer, obtained the ser- 
vices of a troop of horse, with which he shut up the Sala- 
minian Senators in their house of assembly till five of them 
died of starvation, being really unable to procure the sum 
required. The bitter reflections which- Cicero makes upon 
the conduct of Brutus mark the strong contrast between the 
tried and practical friend of virtue and the pedantic aspirant 
to philosophic renown." 



INTRODUCTION. 3 1 



Brutus and Cassius. 



The characters of Brutus and Cassius are very nicely dis- 
criminated, scarce a word falling from either but what smacks 
of the man. Cassius is much the better conspirator, but 
much the worse man ; and the better in that because the 
worse in this. For Brutus engages in the conspiracy on 
grounds of abstract and ideal justice ; while Cassius holds 
it both a wrong and a blunder to go about such a thing 
without making success his first care. This, accordingly, is 
what he works for, being reckless of all other considerations 
in his choice and use of means. Withal he is more impul- 
sive and quick than Brutus, because less under the self- 
discipline of moral principle. His motives, too, are of a 
much more mixed and various quality, because his habits 
of thinking and acting have grown by the measures of expe- 
rience : he studies to understand men as they are ; Brutus, 
as he thinks they ought to be. Hence, in every case where 
Brutus crosses him, Brutus is wrong, and he is right, — right, 
that is, if success be their aim. Cassius judges, and rightly, 
I think, that the end should give law to the means ; and that 
" the honourable men whose daggers have stabb'd Caesar " 
should not be hampered much with conscientious scruples. 

Still Brutus overawes him by his moral energy and eleva- 
tion of character, and by the open-faced rectitude and purity 
of his principles. Brutus has no thoughts or aims that he is 
afraid or ashamed to avow ; Cassius has many which he 
would fain hide even from himself. And he catches a sort 
of inspiration and is raised above himself by contact with 
Brutus. And Cassius, moreover, acts very much from per- 
sonal hatred of Caesar, as remembering how, not long before, 
he and Brutus had stood for the chief Praetorship of the city, 



32 JULIUS CAESAR. 

and Brutus through Caesar's favour had got the election. 
And so the Poet read in Plutarch that " Cassius, being a 
choleric man, and hating Caesar privately more than he did 
the tyranny openly, incensed Brutus against him." The 
effect of this is finely worked out by the Poet in the man's 
affected scorn of Caesar, and in the scoffing humour in which 
he loves to speak of him. For such is the natural language 
of a masked revenge. 

The tone of Cassius is further indicated, and with exqui- 
site art, in his soliloquy where, after tempering Brutus to his 
purpose, and finding how his " honourable' metal may be 
wrought," he gently slurs him for being practicable to flatter- 
ies, and then proceeds to ruminate the scheme for working 
upon his vanity, and thereby drawing him into the conspir- 
acy ; thus spilling the significant fact, that his own honour 
does not stick to practise the arts by which he thinks it is a 
shame to be seduced. 

It is a noteworthy point also, that Cassius is too practical 
and too much of a politician to see any ghosts. Acting on 
far lower principles than his leader, and such as that leader 
would spurn as both wicked and base, he therefore does no 
violence to his heart in screwing it to the work he takes in 
hand : his heart is even more at home in the work than his 
head : whereas Brutus, from the wrenching his heart has suf- 
fered, keeps reverting to the moral complexion of his first 
step. The remembrance of this is a thorn in his side ; while 
Cassius has no sensibilities of nature for such compunctions 
to stick upon.\{ Brutus is never thoroughly himself after the 
assassination : that his heart is ill at ease, is shown in a cer- 
tain dogged tenacity of honour and overstraining of rectitude, 
as if he were struggling to make atonement with his con- 
science. The stab he gave Caesar planted in his own up- 



INTRODUCTION. $$ 

right and gentle nature a germ of remorse, which, gathering 
strength from every subsequent adversity, came to embody 
itself in imaginary sights and sounds ; the Spirit of Justice, 
made an ill angel to him by his own sense of wrong, hover- 
ing in the background of his after-life, and haunting his soli- 
tary moments in the shape of Caesar's ghost. And so it is 
well done, that he is made to see the " monstrous appari- 
tion " just after his heart has been pierced through with many 
sorrows at hearing of Portia's shocking death. 

Character of Portia. 

The delineation of Portia is completed in a few brief 
masterly strokes. Once seen, the portrait ever after lives an 
old and dear acquaintance of the reader's inner man. . Like 
some women I have known, Portia has strength enough to 
do and suffer for others, but very little for herself. As the 
daughter of Cato and the wife of Brutus, she has set in her 
eye a pattern of how she ought to think and act, being " so 
father'd and husbanded " ; but still her head floats merged 
over the ears in her heart; and it is only when. affection 
speaks that her spirit is hushed into the listening which she 
would fain yield only to the speech of reason. She has a 
clear idea of the stoical calmness and fortitude which appears 
so noble and so graceful in her Brutus ; it all lies faithfully 
reproduced in her mind ; she knows well how to honour and 
admire it ; yet she cannot work it into the texture of her 
character ; she can talk it like a book, but she tries in vain 
to live it.^ 

Plutarch gives one most touching incident respecting her 
which the Poet did not use, though he transfused the sense 
of it into his work. It occurred some time after Caesar's 
death, and when the civil war was growing to a head : " Bru- 



34 JULIUS CAESAR. 

tus, seeing the state of Rome would be utterly overthrown, 
went to the city of Elea standing by the sea. There Portia, 
being ready to depart from her husband and return to Rome, 
did what she could to dissemble the sorrow she felt. But a 
certain painting bewrayed her in the end. The device was 
taken out of the Greek stories, how Andromache accom- 
panied her husband Hector when he went out of Troy to the 
wars, and how Hector delivered her his little son, and how 
her eyes were never off him. Portia, seeing this picture, and 
likening herself to be in the same case, fell a- weeping ; and 
coming thither oftentimes in a day to see it, she wept still." 
The force of this incident is indeed all reproduced in the 
Portia of the play ; we have its full effect in the matter about 
her self-inflicted wound as compared with her subsequent 
demeanour ; still I cannot help wishing the Poet had made 
use of the incident itself. 

Portia gives herself that gash without flinching, and bears 
it without a murmur, as an exercise and proof of manly for- 
titude ; and she translates her pains into smiles, all to com- 
fort and support her husband. So long as this purpose lends 
her strength, she is fully equal to her thought, because here 
her heart keeps touch perfectly with her head. But, this mo- 
tive gone, the weakness, if it be not rather the strength, of 
her woman's nature rushes full upon her ; her feelings rise 
into an uncontrollable flutter, and run out at every joint and 
motion of her body ; and nothing can arrest the inward mu- 
tiny till affection again whispers her into composure, lest she 
spill something that may hurt or endanger her Brutus. O 
noble Portia ! Well might the poet Campbell say, " For the 
picture of that wedded pair, at once august and tender, hu- 
man nature and the dignity of conjugal faith are indebted." 



\s 



INTRODUCTION. 35 

Mark Antony. 

A rounded analysis of Antony belongs to a later period, 
when his native aptitudes for vice were warmed into full de- 
velopment by the charms of the great Egyptian sorceress ; 
and only a few of his points as set forth in this play call for 
present notice. His unreserved adulation of Caesar, and 
reckless purveying to Caesar's dangerous weakness in craving 
to be called a king when he already had far more than kingly 
power, and while the obvious part of a friend was to warn 
him from it and help him against it, — this is wisely retained 
by the Poet as one of Antony's characteristic traits. Then 
too we have apt indications here and there of his proneness 
to those vicious levities and debasing luxuries which after- 
wards ripened into such a gigantic profligacy. He has not 
yet attained to that rank and full-blown combination of cru- 
elty, perfidy, and voluptuousness, which the world associates 
with his name, but he is plainly on the way to it. His pro- 
found and wily dissimulation, while knitting up the hollow 
truce with the assassins on the very spot where " great Caesar 
fell," is managed with admirable skill; his deep spasms of 
grief being worked out in just the right way to quench their 
suspicions, and make them run into the toils, when he calls 
on them to render him their bloody hands. Nor have they 
any right to complain, for he is but paying them in their own 
coin ; and we think none the worse of him, that he fairly 
outdoes them at their own practice. 

But Antony's worst parts as here delivered are his exult- 
ant treachery in proposing to use his colleague Lepidus as 
at once the pack-horse and the scape-goat of the Trium- 
virate, and his remorseless savagery in arranging for the 
slaughter of all that was most illustrious in Rome, bartering 



36 JULIUS CAESAR. 

away his own uncle, to glut his revenge with the blood of 
Cicero ; though even here his revenge was less hideous than 
the cold-blooded policy of young Octavius. Yet Antony has 
in the play, as he had in fact, some right-noble streaks in 
him ; for his character was a very mixed one ; and there was 
to the last a fierce war of good and evil within him. Espe- 
cially he had an eye to see, a heart to feel, and a soul to 
honour the superb structure of manhood which Rome pos- 
sessed in Julius Caesar, who stood to him indeed as a kind of 
superior nature, to raise him above himself. He " fear'd 
Caesar, honour'd him, and loved him " ; and this religious 
gravitation towards him was honourable to them both. An- 
tony's usual style of oratory is said to have been rather of the 
bloated and gassy sort ; yet, with the murdered Caesar for 
his theme, he was for once inspired and kindled to a rapture 
of the truest, noblest, most overwhelming eloquence ; his 
actual performance being hardly exaggerated by the oration 
Shakespeare puts in his mouth. Nor must I omit the grate- 
ful remembrance at last of his obligations to Brutus for having 
saved him from the daggers of the conspirators. 

The People. 

That many-headed, but withal big-souled creature, the 
multitude, is charmingly characterized in these scenes. It 
is true, they are rather easily swayed hither and thither by 
the contagion of sympathy and of persuasive speech; yet 
their feelings are in the main right, and even their judgment 
in the long run is better than that of the pampered Roman 
aristocracy, inasmuch as it proceeds more from the instincts 
of manhood. Shakespeare evidently loved to play with the 
natural, unsophisticated, though somewhat childish heart of 
the people ; but his playing is always genial and human- 



INTRODUCTION. 37 

hearted, with a certain angelic humour in it that seldom fails 
to warm us towards the subject. On the whole, he under- 
stood the people well, and they have well repaid him in un- 
derstanding him better, I suspect, than the critics have done. 
The cobbler's droll humour, at the opening of this play, fol- 
lowed as it is by a strain of the loftiest poetry, is aptly noted 
by Campbell as showing that the Poet, " even in dealing 
with classical subjects, laughed at the classic fear of putting 
the ludicrous and sublime into juxtaposition." 

General Remarks. 

As a whole, this play is several degrees inferior to Corio- 
lanus. Admirable as is the characterization, regarded indi- 
vidually, still, in respect of dramatic composition, the play 
does not, to my mind, stand among the Poet's masterpieces. 
But it abounds in particular scenes and passages fraught with 
the highest virtue of his genius. Among these may be spe- 
cially mentioned the second scene of the first Act, where 
Cassius lays the egg of the conspiracy in Brutus 's mind, 
warmed with such a wrappage of instigation as to assure 
its being quickly hatched. Also, the first scene of the sec- 
ond Act, unfolding the birth of the conspiracy, and winding 
up with the interview, so charged with domestic glory, of 
Brutus and Portia. The oration of Antony in Caesar's funeral 
is such an interfusion of art and passion as realizes the very 
perfection of its kind. Adapted at once to the comprehen- 
sion of the lowest mind and to the delectation of the highest, 
and running its pathos into the very quick of them that hear 
it, it tells with terrible effect on the people ; and when it is 
done we feel that Caesar's bleeding wounds are mightier than 
ever his genius and fortune were. The quarrel of Brutus 
and Cassius is deservedly celebrated. Dr. Johnson thought 



38 JULIUS C.ESAR. 

it "somewhat cold and unaffecting." Coleridge thought 
otherwise. " I know," says he, " no part of Shakespeare 
that more impresses on me the belief of his genius being 
superhuman than this scene." I am content to err with 
Coleridge here, if it be an error. But there is nothing in 
the play that seems to me more divinely touched than the 
brief scene, already noticed, of Brutus and his boy Lucius. 
And what a dear little fellow Lucius is ! so gentle, so dutiful, 
so loving, so thoughtful and careful for his master ; and yet 
himself no more conscious of his virtue than a flower of its 
fragrance. His falling asleep in the midst of his song, and 
his exclaiming on being aroused, " The strings, my lord, are 
false," are so good that I cannot speak of them. 



JULIUS C^SAR. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



Julius Caesar. 
Octavius C^sar, "] 
Marcus Antonius, \ Trmmvirs . 
M. iEMiL. LEPtDusJ after his Death - 
Cicero, Pubuus, Popilius Lena, 
Senators. 



Flavius and MARULLUS, Tribunes. 
Artemidorus, a Sophist of Cnidos. 
A Soothsayer. 

ClNNA, a Poet. Another Poet. 
Lucilius.Titinius, Messala, young 

Cato, and Volumnius, Friends to 

Brutus and Cassius. 
Varro.Clitus, Claudius, Strato, 

Lucius, Dardanius, Servants to 

Brutus. 
Pindarus, Servant to Cassius. 

Calpurnia, Wife to C3esar. 
PORTIA, Wife to Brutus. 

Senators, Citizens, Guards, Attendants, &c. 

SCENE, during a great part of the Play, at Rome ; afterwards at Sardis ; 

and near Philippi, 



Marcus Brutus, 




Cassius, 




Casca, 

Trebonius, 

Ligarius, 


Conspirators 
against 
Caesar. 


Decius Brutus, 


Metellus Cimber, 




ClNNA, 





ACT I. 

Scene I. — Rome. A Street. 

Enter Flavius, Marullus, and a Throng ^/"Citizens. 

Flav. Hence ! home, you idle creatures, get you home ! 
Is this a holiday ? What ! know you not, 

39 



40 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT I. 

Being mechanical, 1 you ought not walk 2 

Upon a labouring-day without the sign 

Of your profession? 3 — Speak, what trade art thou ? 

i Cit. Why, sir, a carpenter. 

Mar. Where is thy leather apron and thy rule ? 
What dost thou with thy best apparel on ? — 
You, sir ; what trade are you ? 

2 Cit. Truly, sir, in respect of 4 a fine workman, L am 
but, as you would say, a cobbler. 

Mar. But what trade art thou ? Answer me directly. 5 

2 Cit. A trade, sir, that I hope I may use with a safe 
conscience ; which is indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles. 

Mar. What trade, thou knave ? thou naughty knave, what 
trade ? 

2 Cit. Nay, I beseech you, sir, be not out with me : yet, 
if you be out, sir, I can mend you. 6 

1 Shakespeare often uses adjectives with the sense of plural substantives ; 
as mechatzical here for mechanics or artizans. So in Hamlet, i. i : " Tell me 
why this same strict and most observant watch so nightly toils the subject of 
the land." The sense in the text is, " Know you not that, being mechanics, 
you ought not," &c. 

2 " Ought not to walk," of course. This omission of to is not unfrequent. 
So in The Merchant, i. 3 : " Whose own hard dealing teaches them suspect 
the thoughts of others." 

3 The Poet here transfers to Rome the English customs and usages of 
his own time ; representing men in the several mechanic trades as having 
their guilds, with appropriate regulations and badges. 

4 Here, as often, in respect of'\s equivalent to in comparison with. So in 
the 39th Psalm of The Psalter: " Thou hast made my days as it were a span 
long, and mine age is even as nothing in respect of Thee." See, also, Ham- 
let, page 219, note 29. 

5 Cobbler, it seems, was used of a coarse workman, or a botcher, in any 
mechanical trade. So that the Cobbler's answer does not give the infor- 
mation required. — Directly here has the sense of the Latin directus ; in a 
straightforward manner, or without evasion. 

6 Of course there is a play upon the two senses of out here. To be out 



SCENE I. JULIUS CAESAR. 41 

Mar. What mean'st thou by that ? Mend me, thou saucy 
fellow ! 

2 Cit. Why, sir, cobble you. 

Flav. Thou art a. cobbler, art thou ? 

2 Cit. Truly, sir, all that I live by is with the awl : I med- 
dle with no tradesman's matters, nor women's matters, but 
with all. I am indeed, sir, a surgeon to old shoes ; when 
they are in great danger, I re-cover them. As proper 7 men 
as ever trod upon neat's-leather 8 have gone upon my handi- 
work. 

Flav. But wherefore art not in thy shop to-day ? 
Why dost thou lead these men about the streets? 

2 Cit. Truly, sir, to wear out their shoes, to get myself 
into more work. But indeed, sir, we make holiday, to see 
Caesar, and to rejoice in his triumph. 

Mar. Wherefore rejoice ? What conquest brings he home ? 
What tributaries follow him to Rome, 
To grace in captive bonds his chariot-wheels ? 
You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things ! 
O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome, 
Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft 
Have you climb'd up to walls and battlements, 
To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops, 
Your infants in your arms, 9 and there have sat 

with a man is to be at odds with him ; to be out at the toes is to need a 
mending of one's shoes. 

7 Proper for handsome, goodly, or fine. Commonly so in Shakespeare ; at 
least when used of persons. And so, in Hebrews, xi. 23, it is said that the 
parents of Moses hid him " because they saw he was a proper child." 

8 Neat's-leather is what we call cowhide or calfskin. Neat was applied to 
all cattle of the bovine genus. So in The Winter's Tale, i. 2 : " The steer, 
the heifer, and the calf, are all call'd neat." And the word is still so used in 
" neat's-foot oil." 

9 " Your infants being in your arms." Ablative absolute. 



42 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT I. 

The live-long day, with patient expectation, 
To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome : 
And, when you saw his chariot but appear, 
Have you not made an universal shout, 
That 10 Tiber trembled underneath her 11 banks, 
To hear the replication 12 of your sounds 
Made in her concave shores ? 
And do you now put on your best attire ? 
And do you now cull out a holiday? 13 
And do you now strew flowers 14 in his way 
That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood? 15 
Be gone ! 

Run to your houses, fall upon your knees, 
Pray to the gods to intermit 16 the plague 
That needs must light on this ingratitude. 17 

10 That with the force of so that or insomuch that. Often so used by the 
writers of Shakespeare's time, and in all sorts of writing. 

11 In classical usage the divinities of rivers were gods, and not goddesses. 
Old English usage, however, varies ; Drayton making them mostly femi- 
nine ; Spenser, masculine. 

12 Replication for echo or reverberation. — Here, as often, the infinitive to 
hear is used gerundively, or like the Latin gerund, and so is equivalent to 
at hearing. 

13 " Do you cull out this time for a holiday ? " is the meaning. 

14 Flowers is here a dissyllable. This and various similar words, as 
bower, dower, hour, and power, the Poet uses as oncor two syllables, accord- 
ing as his verse requires. The same with fire, hire, tire, year, and divers 
others. 

15 The reference is to the great battle of Munda, in Spain, which took 
place in the Fall of the preceding year. Caesar was now celebrating his 
fifth triumph, which was in honour of his final victory over the Pompeian 
faction. Cnasus and Sextus, the two sons of Pompey the Great, were lead- 
ers in that battle, and Cnaeus perished. 

16 Intermit is here equivalent to remit ; that is, avert, or turn back. 

17 It is evident from the opening scene, that Shakespeare, even in dealing 
with classical subjects, laughed at the classic fear of putting the ludicrous 



SCENE I. JULIUS CAESAR. 43 

Flav. Go, go, good countrymen ; and, for this fault, 
Assemble all the poor men of your sort ; 
Draw them to Tiber banks, and weep your tears 
Into the channel, till the lowest stream 
Do kiss the most exalted shores 18 of all. — [Exeunt Citizens. 
See, wher their basest metal 19 be not moved ! 
They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness. 
Go you down that way towards the Capitol ; 
This way will I. Disrobe the images, 
If you do find them deck'd with ceremony. 20 

Mar. May we do so ? 
You know it is the feast of Lupercal. 21 

Flav. It is no matter ; let no images 
Be hung with Caesar's trophies. 22 I'll about, 

and sublime into juxtaposition. After the low and farcical jests of the 
saucy cobbler, the eloquence of Marullus " springs upwards like a pyramid 
of fire." — Campbell. 

18 The meaning is, " till your tears swell the river from the extreme low- 
water mark to the extreme high-water mark." 

19 Wfier for whether. Thus the Poet often contracts whether into one 
syllable. The contraction occurs repeatedly in this play. — In basest metal 
Shakespeare probably had lead in his thought.' So that the meaning is, that 
even these men, though as dull and heavy as lead, have yet the sense to be 
tongue-tied with shame at their conduct. 

20 These images were the busts and statues of Caesar, ceremoniously 
decked with scarfs and badges in honour of his triumph. 

21 This festival, held in honour of Lupercus, the Roman Pan, fell on the 
13th of February, which month was so named from Februus, a surname of 
the god. Lupercus was, primarily, the god of shepherds, said to have been 
so called because he kept off the wolves. His wife Luperca was the deified 
she-wolf that suckled Romulus. The festival, in its original idea, was meant 
for religious expiation and purification, February being at that time the last 
month of the year. 

22 " Caesar's trophies " are the scarfs and badges mentioned in note 20 ; as 
appears in the next scene, where it is said that the Tribunes " are put to 
silence for pulling scarfs off Caesar's images." 



44 JULIUS CiESAR. ACT I. 

And drive away the vulgar 23 from the streets : 

So do you too, where you perceive them thick. 

These growing feathers pluck'd from Caesar's wing 

Will make him fly an ordinary pitch ; 24 

Who else would soar above the view of men, 

And keep us all in servile fearfulness. [Exeunt. 

Scene II. — The Same. A Public Place. 

Enter, in Procession, with Music, Caesar ; Antony, for the 
course; Calpurnia, Portia, Decius, Cicero, Brutus, 
Cassius, and Casca ; a great Crowd following, among 
them a Soothsayer. 

Cces. Calpurnia, — 

Casca. Peace, ho ! Caesar speaks. [Music ceases. 

Cozs. Calpurnia, — 
Cal. Here, my lord. 

Cozs. Stand you directly in Antonius' way, 
When he doth run his course. 1 — Antonius, — 

23 The Poet often uses vulgar in its Latin sense of common. Here it 
means the common people. 

24 Pitch is here a technical term in falconry, and means the highest flight 
of a hawk or falcon. 

1 Marcus Antonius was at this time Consul, as Caesar himself also was. 
Each Roman gens had its own priesthood, and also its peculiar religious 
rites. The priests of the Julian gens (so named from lulus the son of 
.Eneas) had lately been advanced to the same rank with those of the god 
Lupercus ; and Antony was at this time at their head. It was probably as 
chief of the Julian Luperci that he officiated on this occasion in " the holy 
course." — It may be well to add, here, that in old Roman society the gens 
was much the same as the Scottish clan in modern times ; and that all the 
individuals, both male and female, of a given gens inherited what is called 
the gentilitial name ; as Julius and Julia, Antonius and Antonia, Calpurnius 
and Calpurnia, Octavius and Octavia, Junius and Junia, Portius and Portia, 
Cassius and Cassia, Tullius and Tullia, &c. 



SCENE II. i JULIUS CLESAR. 45 

■Ant. Caesar, my lord ? 

Cces. Forget not, in your speed, Antonius, 
To touch Calpurnia ; for our elders say, 
The barren, touched in this holy chase, 
Shake off their sterile curse. 2 

Anto. I shall remember : 

When Caesar says Do this, it is perform'd. 

Cces. Set on ; and leave no ceremony" out. [Music. 

Sooth. Caesar ! 

Cces. Ha ! who calls ? 

Casca. Bid every noise be still. — Peace yet again ! 

\Music ceases. 

Cces. Who is it in the press that calls on me ? 
I hear a tongue, shriller than all the music, 
Cry Ccesar! Speak ; Caesar is turn'd to hear. 

Sooth. Beware the Ides of March. 

Cces. What man is that ? 

Bru. A soothsayer bids you beware the Ides of March. 3 

Cces. Set him before me ; let me see his face. 

2 It was an old custom at these festivals for the priests, all naked except 
a girdle about the loins, to run through the streets of the city, waving in the 
hand a thong of goat's hide, and striking with it such women as offered 
themselves for the blow, in the belief that this would prevent or avert " the 
sterile curse." — Caesar was at this time childless ; his only daughter, Julia, 
married to Pompey the Great, having died some years before, upon the birth 
of her first child, who also died soon after. The Poet justly ascribes to 
Caesar the natural desire of children to inherit his vast fame and honours ; 
and this desire is aptly signified in the play, as such an ambition to be the 
founder of a royal or imperial line would be an additional motive for the 
conspiracy against him. 

3 Coleridge has a remark on this line, which, whether true to the subject 
or not, is very characteristic of the writer : " If my ear does not deceive me, 
the metre of this line was meant to express that sort of mild philosophic con- 
tempt, characterizing Brutus even in his first casual speech." The metrical 
analysis of the line is, an lamb, two Anapests, and two Iambs. 



46 JULIUS CESAR. 



ACT I. 



Cass. Fellow, come from the throng ; look upon Caesar. 

Cces. What say'st thou to me now? speak once again. 

Sooth. Beware the Ides of March. 

Cces. He is a dreamer ; let us leave him. — Pass. 

[Sennet* Exeunt all but Brutus and Cassius. 

Cass. Will you go see the order of the course ? 

Bru. Not I. 

Cass. I pray you, do. 

B7-U. I am not gamesome : 5 I do lack some part 
Of that quick spirit 6 that is in Antony. 
Let me not hinder, Cassius, your desires ; 
I'll leave you. 

Cass. Brutus, I do observe you now of late : 
I have not from your eyes that gentleness 
And show of love as 7 I was wont to have : 
You bear too stubborn and too strange a hand 
Over your friend that loves you. 8 

Bru. Cassius, 



4 Sennet is an old musical term occurring repeatedly in Shakespeare ; of 
uncertain origin, but denoting a peculiar succession of notes on a trumpet, 
used, as here, to signal the march of a procession. 

5 Gamesome is fond of sport, or sportively inclined. Repeatedly so. 

6 Quick for lively or animated. So we have it in the phrases, " quick 
recreation," and " quick wati. merry words." — Spirit, in Shakespeare, is often 
pronounced as one syllable, and sometimes spelt so, — sprite, spright. 

7 The demonstratives this, that, and such, and also the relatives which, 
that, and as, were often used indiscriminately. So a little later in this scene : 
" Under these hard conditions as this time is like to lay on us." 

8 This man, Caius Cassius Longinus, had married Junia, a sister of Bru- 
tus. Both had lately stood for the chief Praetorship of the city, and Brutus, 
through Caesar's favour, had won it ; though Cassius was at the same time 
elected one of the sixteen Praetors or judges of the city. This is said to have 
produced a coldness between Brutus and Cassius, so that they did not 
speak to each other, till this extraordinary flight of patriotism brought them 
together. 



SCENE II. JULIUS (L3£SAR. 47 

Be not deceived : if I have veil'd my look, 

I turn the trouble of my countenance 

Merely 9 upon myself. Vexed I am 

Of late with passions of some difference, 10 

Conceptions only proper to myself, 

Which give some soil, perhaps, to my behaviours ; n 

But let not therefore my good friends be grieved, — 

Among which number, Cassius, be you one, — 

Nor construe 12 any further my neglect, 

Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war, 

Forgets the shows of love to other men. 

Cass. Then, Brutus, I have much mistook your passion ; 13 
By means whereof 14 this breast of mine hath buried 
Thoughts of great value, worthy cogitations. 
Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face ? 

Brn. No, Cassius ; for the eye sees not itself 
But by reflection from some other thing. 15 

9 Merely, here, is altogether or entirely. A frequent usage. 

10 That is, conflicting passions ; such as his love to Caesar personally, 
and his hatred of Caesar's power in the State. 

11 " Which blemish or tarnish the lustre of my manners? The Poet re- 
peatedly uses the plural, behaviours, for the particular acts which make up 
what we call behaviour. And so of several other words. 

12 In Shakespeare, and, I think, in all other poetry, construe always has 
the accent on the first syllable. How or whence the present vulgar pro- 
nunciation of it came into use, I cannot say. The same, too, of misconstrue, 
which always has the accent on con. 

13 The Poet uses mistook and mistaken indiscriminately. He also some- 
times uses passion for any feeling, sentiment, or emotion, whether painful or 
pleasant. So he has " more merry tears the passion of loud laughter never 
shed," and "free from gross passion or of mirth or anger." 

14 Means was sometimes used in the sense of cause or reason. Whereof 
refers to the preceding clause. 

16 By an image or " shadow " reflected from a mirror, or from water, or 
some polished surface. 



4S JULIUS CAESAR. ACT I. 

Cass. 'Tis just : 16 
And it is very much lamented, Brutus, 
That you have no such mirror as will turn 
Your hidden worthiness into your eye, 
That you might see your shadow. I have heard, 
Where many of the best respect 17 in Rome, — 
Except immortal Caesar ! — speaking of Brutus, 
And groaning underneath this age's yoke, 
Have wish'd that noble Brutus had his eyes. 

Bru. Into what dangers would you lead me, Cassius, 
That you would have me seek into myself 
For that which is not in me ? 

Cass. Therefore, good Brutus, be prepared to hear : 
And, since you know you cannot see yourself 
So well as by reflection, I, your glass, 
Will modestly discover to yourself 
That of yourself which you yet know not of. 
And be not jealous on me, 18 gentle Brutus : 
Were I a common laugher, or did use 
To stale 19 with ordinary oaths my love 
To every new protester ; 20 if you know 

16 'Tis just is the same as our phrase, "That's so," or " Exactly so." 

17 The sense probably is, " I have been present where many of the highest 
repute, or held in the highest consideration." Respect was often used so. — 
In what follows, " Except immortal Caesar ! " is very emphatic, and intensely 
ironical. 

18 On and of were used indifferently in such cases. Jealous, also, for 
doubtful or suspicious. So a little further on : " That you do love me, I am 
nothing jealousy 

19 To stale a thing is to make it common or cheap by indiscriminate use. 
So in iv. i, of this play: "Out of use, and staled by other men." — Laugher, 
if it be the right word, must mean jester or buffoon. See Critical Notes. 

20 To protest occurs frequently in the sense of to profess, to declare, or to 
vow. The passage is well explained by one in Hamlet, i. 3 : " Do not dull 
thy palm with entertainment of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade." 



scene II. JULIUS CAESAR. 49 

That I do fawn on men, and hug them hard, 
And after scandal them ; or if you know 
That I profess myself, in banqueting, 
To all the rout, 21 then hold me dangerous. 

[Flourish and shout. 

Bru. What means this shouting ? I do fear the people 
Choose Caesar for their king. 

Cass. Ay, do. you fear it ? 

Then must I think you would not have it so. 

Brit. I would not, Cassius ; yet I love him well. 
But wherefore do you hold me here so long? 
What is it that you would impart to me ? 
If it be aught toward 22 the general good, 
Set honour in one eye and death i' the other, 
And I will look on death indifferently ; 
For let the gods so speed 23 me as I love 
The name of honour more than I fear death. 

Cass. I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus, 
As well as I do know your outward favour. 24 
Well, honour is the subject of my story. 
I cannot tell what you and other men 
Think of this life ; but, for my single self, 
I had as lief 25 not be as live to be 

21 The order, according to the sense, is, " if you know that, in banquet- 
ing, I profess myself to all the rout." — To make his flattery work the bet- 
ter, Cassius here assures the " gentle Brutus " that he scorns to flatter, that 
he never speaks any thing but austere truth, and that he is extremely select 
in his friendships. 

22 Here, as often, toward is two syllables, with the accent on the last. 

23 To speed for to prosper or bless ; a frequent usage. So in The Merry 
Wives, iii. 4 : " Heaven so speed me in my time to come ! " 

24 Favour for look, aspect, or appearance, was very common. 

25 Lief or lieve is an old word for glad or willing, gladly or willingly ; 
.the opposite of loth or loath. Its original sense was about the same as dear. 



50 JULIUS CJESAR. act i. 

In awe of such a thing as I myself. 

I was born free as Caesar ; so were you : 

We both have fed as well ; and we can both 

Endure the Winter's cold as well as he : 

For once, upon a raw and gusty day, 

The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores, 

Caesar said to me, Darest thou, Cassius, now 

Leap in with me into this a?igry flood, 

And swim to yonder point ? Upon the word, 

Accoutred as I was, I plunged in, 

And bade him follow : so indeed he did. 

The torrent roar'd, and we did buffet it 

With - lusty sinews, throwing it aside 

And stemming it with hearts of controversy : 26 

But, ere we could arrive the point 27 proposed, 

Caesar cried, Help me, Cassius, or I sink / 

I, as ./Eneas, our great ancestor, 

Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoujder 

The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber 

Did I the tired Caesar : and this man 

Is now become a god ; and Cassius is 

A wretched creature, and must bend his body, 

If Caesar carelessly but nod on him. 

He had a fever when he was in Spain ; 28 

26 That is, with opposing or contending hearts ; heart being put for cour- 
age. The Poet has many like expressions, as, " mind of love " for loving 
mind, " thieves of mercy" for merciful thieves, " time of scorn " for scornful 
time, &c. 

27 Shakespeare uses both arrive and aspire as transitive verbs, and in the 
sense of reach or attain; So in j Henry the Sixth, v. 3 : " Those powers 
that the Queen hath raised in Gallia have arrived our coast." Also Milton, 
in Paradise Lost, ii. 409 : " Ere he arrive the happy isle." 

28 Fever appears to have been used for sickness in general, as well as 
for what we call a fever. Caesar had three several campaigns in Spain at 



scene II. JULIUS OESAR. 5 1 

And when the fit was on him I did mark 

How he did shake : 'tis true, this god did shake : 

His coward lips did from their colour fly; 29 

And that same eye, whose bend 30 doth awe the world, • 

Did lose his 31 lustre. I did hear him groan : 

Ay, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans 

Mark him, and write his speeches in their books, 

Alas, it cried, Give me some drink, Titinius, 

As a sick girl. — Ye gods, it doth amaze me, 

A man of such a feeble temper 32 should 

different periods of his life, and the text does not show which of these Shake- 
speare had in mind. The following from Plutarch would seem to infer that 
Caesar was first taken with the epilepsy during his third campaign, which 
closed with the great battle of Munda, March 17, B.C. 45 ; but Plutarch else- 
where speaks of him as having had the disease at an earlier period : " Con- 
cerning the constitution of his body, he was lean, white, and soft-skinned, 
and often subject to headache, and otherwhile to the falling-sickness ; the 
which took him the first time, as it is reported, in Corduba, a city of Spain ; 
but yet therefore yielded not to the disease of his body, to make it a cloak 
to cherish him withal ; but, contrarily, took the pains of war as a medicine 
to cure his sick body, fighting always with his disease, travelling continu- 
ally, living soberly, and commonly lying abroad in the field." 

29 The image, very bold, somewhat forced, and not altogether happy, is 
of a cowardly soldier running away from his flag. 

30 Bend for look. The verb to bend, when used of the eyes, often has the 
sense of to direct. So in 1 Henry the Fourth, ii. 3 : " Why dost thou bend 
thine eyes upon the earth ? " * 

31 His for its, and referring to eye. Its was not then an accepted word, 
but was knocking for admission ; and Shakespeare has it several times. It 
does not once occur in the English Bible as first printed in 1611 ; and only 
twice, I think, in Paradise Lost, published in 1667. 

32 Temper for constitution or temperament. — " The lean and wrinkled 
Cassius " venting his spite at Caesar, by ridiculing his liability to sickness 
and death, is charmingly characteristic. In fact, this mighty man, with all 
his electric energy of mind and will, was of a rather fragile and delicate 
make ; and his countenance, as we have it in authentic busts, is almost a 
model of feminine beauty. Cicero, who did not love him at all, in one of his 
Letters applies to him a Greek word, the same that is used for miracle or 



52 JULIUS CESAR. ACT I. 

So get the start of the majestic world, 

And bear the palm alone. [Shout. Flourish. 

Bru. Another general shout ! 
I do believe that these applauses are 
For some new honours that are heap'd on Csesar. 

Cass. Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world 
Like a Colossus ; 33 and we petty men 
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about 
To find ourselves dishonourable graves. 
Men at some time are masters of their fates : 
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, 34 
But in ourselves, that we are underlings. 
Brutus and Ccesar: what should be in that Cozsar ? 35 
Why should that name be sounded more than yours? 
Write them together, yours is as fair a name ; 
Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well ; 
Weigh them, it is as heavy ; conjure with them, 
Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Ctesar. 36 

wonder in the New Testament ; the English of the passage being, " This 
miracle (monster ?) is a thing of terrible energy, swiftness, diligence." 

33 Observe the force of narrow here ; as if Caesar were grown so enor- 
mously big that even the world seemed a little thing under him. Some 
while before this, the Senate had erected a bronze statue of Caesar, standing 
on a globe, and inscribed to " Caesar the Demigod " ; which inscription, 
however, Caesar had erased. — The original Colossus was a bronze statue a 
hundred and twenty feet high, set up astride a part of the harbour at Rhodes, 
so that ships passed " under its huge legs." 

34 Referring to the oid astrological notion of planetary influence on the 
fortunes and characters of men. The Poet has many such allusions. 

35 Meaning, "what is there in that word Ccesar ?" The Poet often uses 
should be where we should use is or can be. So I have sometimes been 
asked, " What might your name be ?" 

36 The allusion is to the old custom of muttering certain names, sup- 
posed to have in them " the might of magic spells," in raising or conjuring 
up spirits. — Brutus and Ccesar are here printed in Italic, to show that Cas- 
sius is referring to the magical power of the names, and not to the men. 



scene II, JULIUS (LESAR. 53 

Now, in the names of all the gods at once, 
Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed, 
That he is grown so great ? Age, thou art shamed ! 
Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods ! 
When went there by an age, since the great flood, 37 
But it was famed with more than with one man ? 
When could they say, till now, that talk'd of Rome, 
That her wide walls encompass 'd but one man ? 
Now is it Rome indeed, and room 38 enough, 
When there is in it but one only man. 
O, you and I have heard our fathers say 
There was a Brutus once 39 that would have brook'd 
Th' eternal Devil to keep his state 40 in Rome, 
As easily as a king ! 

Bru. That you do love me, I am nothing jealous ; 
What you would work me to, I have some aim : 41 

37 By this a Roman would of course mean Deucalion's flood. 

38 A play upon Rome and room, which appear to have been sounded 
more alike in Shakespeare's time than they are now. — In the next line, 
"but one only" is redundant or reduplicative, and means but one, or only 
one. Repeatedly so. 

39 Alluding to Lucius Junius Brutus, who bore a leading part* in driving 
out the Tarquins, and in turning the Kingdom -into a Republic. After- 
wards, as Consul, he condemned his own sons to death for attempting to 
restore the Kingdom. The Marcus Junius Brutus of the play supposed him- 
self to be lineally descended from him. His mother, Servilia, also derived 
her lineage from Servilius Ahala, who slew Spurius Maelius for aspiring to 
royalty. Merivale justly remarks that " the name of Brutus forced its pos- 
sessor into prominence as soon as royalty began to be discussed." 

40 " Keep his state " may mean either preserve his dignity or set up his 
throne; state being repeatedly used for throne. — The Poet has eternal sev- 
eral times for infernal. Perhaps our Yankee phrases, " tarnal shame," 
" tarnal scamp," &c., are relics of this usage. It seems that the Puritans 
and Calvinists thought infernal too profane for godly mouths, and so trans- 
ferred its sense to eternal. 

41 " Work me to " is persuade or induce me to. — Aim is guess. So the 



54 JULIUS C.-ESAR. ACT I. 

How I have thought of this, and of these times, 
I shall recount hereafter ; for this present, 
I would not, so with love I might entreat you, 
Be any further moved. What you have said, 
I will consider ; what you have to say, 
I will with patience hear ; and find a time 
Both meet to hear and answer such high things. 
Till then, my noble friend, chew 42 upon this : 
Brutus had rather be a villager 
Than to repute himself 43 a son of Rome 
Under these hard conditions as this time 
Is like to lay upon us. 

Cass. I am glad that my weak words 
Have struck but thus much show of fire 44 from Brutus. 

Bru. The games are done, and Caesar is returning. 

Cass. As they pass by, pluck Casca by the sleeve ; 
And he will, after his sour fashion, tell you 
What hath proceeded 45 worthy note to-day. 

Re-enter Caesar and his Train. 

Bru. I will do so. — But, look you, Cassius, 
The angry spot doth glow on Caesar's brow, 
And all the rest look like a chidden train : 
Calpurnia's cheek is pale ; and Cicero 

verb in Romeo and fuliet, i. i : "I aim'd so near when I supposed you 
loved." And the Poet has it so in divers other places. 

42 To chew is, literally, to ruminate ; that is, reflect or meditate. 

43 An irregular construction, but common in the Poet's time. So Bacon 
in his essay Of Friendship : " A man were better relate himself to a statue 
or picture than to suffer his thoughts to pass in smother." 

44 Referring to the use of steel and flint in starting a fire. So, in Troilus 
and Cressida, iii. 3, Thersites says of Ajax's wit, " It lies as coldly in him as 
fire in a flint, which will not show without knocking." 

45 That is, hath happened or come to pass. Repeatedly so. 



SCENE II. JULIUS CAESAR. 55 

Looks with such ferret 46 and such fiery eyes 

As we have seen him in the Capitol, 

Being cross'd in conference by some Senator. 

Cass. Casca will tell us what the matter is. 

Cces. Antonius, — 

Ant., Caesar? 

Cces. Let me have men about me that are fat ; 
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights : 
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look ; 
He thinks too much : 47 such men are dangerous. 

Ant. Fear him not, Csesar ; he's not dangerous ; 
He is a noble Roman, and well given. 48 

Cces. Would he were fatter ! but I fear him not : 
Yet, if my name were liable to fear, 
I do not know the man I should avoid 
So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much ; 
He is a great observer, and he looks 
Quite through the deeds of men : he loves no plays, 49 

46 The ferret is a very ferocious little animal of the weasel kind, noted for 
its fire-red eyes. — The angry spot on Caesar's brow, Calpurnia's pale cheek, 
and Cicero spouting fire from his eyes as when kindled by opposition in 
the Senate, make an exceedingly vivid picture. 

47 So in North's Plutarch, Life o/yulius Ccesar : " When Caesar's frends 
complained unto him of Antonius and Dolabella, that they pretended some 
mischief towards him, he answered them, As for those fat men, and smooth- 
combed heads, I never reckon of them ; but these pale-visaged and carrion- 
lean people, I fear them most ; meaning Brutus and Cassius." 

48 Well given is well disposed. So in North's Plutarch : " If there were 
any noble attempt done in all this conspiracy, they refer it wholly unto Bru- 
tus ; and all the cruel and violent acts unto Cassius, who was Brutus's fa- 
miliar friend, but not so well given and conditioned as he." 

49 This is from Plutarch's Life of Antonius : " In his house they did 
nothing but feast, dance, and masque; and himself passed away the time in 
hearing of foolish plays, and in marrying these players, tumblers, jesters, 
and such sort of people." 



56 JULIUS C^SAR. ACT I. 

As thou dost, Antony ; he hears no music : 50 
Seldom he smiles ; and smiles in such a sort 
As if he mock'd himself, and scorn'd his spirit 
That could be moved to smile at any thing. 
Such men as he never be at heart's ease 
Whiles they behold a greater than themselves ; 
And therefore are they very dangerous. 
I rather tell thee what is to be fear'd 
Than what I fear, for always I am Caesar. 
Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf, 51 
And tell me truly what thou think'st of him. 

[Exeunt Cesar and his Train. Casca stays. 

Casca. You pull'd me by the cloak : would you speak 
with me? 

Bru. Ay, Casca ; tell us what hath chanced to-day, 
That Caesar looks so sad. 52 

Casca. Why, you were with him, were you not? 

Bru. I should not then ask Casca what had chanced. 

50 The power of music is repeatedly celebrated by Shakespeare, and some- 
times in strains that approximate the classical hyperboles about Orpheus, 
Amphion, and Arion. His own ear, no doubt, was exquisitely sensitive to 
" the touches of sweet harmony." What is here said of Cassius has an apt 
commentary in The Merchant of Venice, v. i : — 

The man that hath no music in himself, 

Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, 

Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; 

The motions of his spirit are dull as night, 

And his affections dark as Erebus: 

Let no such man be trusted. 

51 This is one of the little touches of invention that so often impart a 
fact-like vividness to the Poet's scenes ; like that remarked in note 46. 

62 Sad in its old sense of grave or serious, probably. A frequent usage. 
So, in Romeo and Juliet, i. 1, Benvolio says, " Tell me in sadness, who 'tis 
that you love " ; and Romeo replies, " In sadness, cousin, I do love a wo- 
man." 



SCENE II. JULIUS (LESAR. 57 

Casca. Why, there was a crown offer'd him ; and, being 
offer'd him, he put it by with the back of his hand, thus ; and 
then the people fell a-shouting. 

Brit. What was the second noise for ? 

Casca. Why, for that too. 

Cass. They shouted thrice : what was the last cry for? 

Casca. Why, for that too. 

Bru. Was the crown offer'd him thrice ? 

Casca. Ay, marry, 53 was't, and he put it by thrice, every 
time gentler than other ; and at every putting-by mine hon- 
est neighbours shouted. 

Cass. Who offer'd him the crown? 

Casca. Why, Antony. 

Bru. Tell us the manner of it, gentle Casca. 

Casca. I can as well be hang'd, as tell the manner of it : 
it was mere foolery ; I did not mark it. I saw Mark Antony 
offer him a crown ; — yet 'twas not a crown neither, 'twas 
one of these coronets ; — and, as I told you, he put it by 
once : but, for all that, to my thinking, he would fain 54 have 
had it. Then he offered it to him again ; then he put it by 
again : but, to my thinking, he was very loth to lay his fingers 
off it. And then he offered it the third time ; he put it the 
third time by; and still, as he refused it, the rabblement 
shouted, and clapp'd their chopt hands, and threw up their 
sweaty night-caps, and uttered such a deal of stinking breath 
because Caesar refused the crown, that it had almost choked 
Caesar , for he swooned, and fell down at it : and, for mine 

53 From an old custom of appealing to the Virgin Mary, marry grew 
into common use as an intensive ; like verily, Indeed, to be sure. So the 
Latin often has heracle and edepol ; the latter from swearing by Castor and 
Pollux. 

54 Fain is glad or gladly ; much used in the Poet's time. So in St. Luke, 
xv. 16 : " He would fain have filled his belly with the husks," &c. 



58 JULIUS GdESAR. ACT 1. 

own part, I durst not laugh, for fear of opening my lips and 
receiving the bad air. 55 

Cass. But, soft ! 56 I pray you. What, did Caesar swoon ? 

Casca. He fell down in the market-place, and foam'd at 
mouth, and was speechless. 

Bru. 'Tis very like : he hath the falling-sickness. 

Cass. No, Caesar hath it not ; but you, and I, 
And honest Casca, we have the falling-sickness. 57 

Casca. I know not what you mean by that ; but I am sure 
Caesar fell down. If the tag-rag people did not clap him 
and hiss him, according as he pleased and displeased them, 
as they use to do the players in the theatre, I am no true 
man. 58 

55 Caesar sat to behold that sport upon the pulpit for orations, in a chain 
of gold, apparelled in triumphant manner. Antonius, who was Consul at 
that time, was one of them that ran this holy course. So when he came 
into the market-place the people made a lane for him to run at liberty, and 
he came to Caesar, and presented him a diadem wreathed about with laurel. 
Whereupon there rose a certain cry of rejoicing, not very great, done only 
by a few appointed for the purpose. But when Caesar refused the diadem, 
then all the people together made an outcry of joy. Then Antonius offering 
it him again, there was a second shout of joy, but 'yet of a few. But when 
Caesar refused it again the second time, then all the whole people shouted. 
Caesar having made this proof, found that the people did not like of it, and 
thereupon rose out of his chair, and commanded the crown to be carried 
unto Jupiter in the Capitol. — Plutarch. 

56 Soft! was much used as an exclamation for arresting or retarding the 
speed of a person or thing; meaning about the same as hold! stay! or not 
too fast! So in Othello, v. 2 : " Soft you ! a word or two before you go." 

57 Meaning the disease of" standing prostrate " before Caesar. Falling- 
sickness or falling-evil was the English name for epilepsy. Caesar was sub- 
ject to it, especially in his later years, as Napoleon also is said to have been. 
See page 50, note 28. 

58 " True man " is honest man. Often used in that sense, but especially 
as opposed to thief So in Cymbeline, ii. 3 : " 'Tis gold which makes the 
true man kill'd, and saves the thief; nay, sometimes hangs both thief and 
true man." Also in Venus and Adonis ; " Rich preys make true men thieves." 



SCENE II. JULIUS CAESAR. 59 

Bru. What said he when he came unto himself? 

Casca. Marry, before he fell down, when he perceived 
the common herd was glad he refused the crown, he pluck'd 
me ope his doublet, 59 and offer'd them his throat to cut : an 
I had been a man of any occupation, 60 if I would not have 
taken him at a word, I would I might go to Hell among the 
rogues : — and so he fell. When he came to himself again 
he said, if he had done or said any thing amiss, he desired 
their Worships to think it was his infirmity. 61 Three or four 
wenches, where I stood, cried, Alas, good soul 7 and forgave 
him with all their hearts. But there's no heed to be taken 
of them : if Caesar had stabb'd their mothers, they would 
have done no less. 

Bru. And, after that, he came thus sad away ? 

Casca. Ay. 

Cass. Did Cicero say any thing? 

Casca. Ay, he spoke Greek. 

Cass. To what effect? 

Casca. Nay, an I tell you that, I'll ne'er look you i' the 
face again : but those that understood him smiled at one 

69 Doublet was the common English name of a man's upper outward 
garment. — In this clause, me is simply redundant; as in Falstaff's speech 
in praise of sack : " It ascends me into the brain ; dries me there all the fool- 
ish and dull and crudy vapours which environ it." 

60 " A man of occupation " probably means not only a mechanic or user 
of cutting-tools, but also a man of business and of action, as distinguished 
from a gentleman of leisure, or an idler. — An, in this clause, is an old 
equivalent for if. Often used thus by the Poet. See Hamlet, page 89, 
note 34. 

61 Thereupon Caesar rising departed home to his house ; and, tearing 
open his doublet-collar, making his neck bare, he cried out aloud to his 
friends, that his throat was ready to offer to any man that would come and 
cut it. Notwithstanding it is reported that, afterwards, to excuse his folly, 
he imputed it to his disease, saying that their wits are not perfect which 
have this disease of the falling-evil. — PLUTARCH. 



60 JULIUS CJESAR. ACT I. 

another, and shook their heads ; 6 ~ but, for mine own part, it 
was Greek to me. 63 I could tell you more news too : Marul- 
lus and Flavius, for pulling scarfs off Caesar's images, are put 
to silence. 64 Fare you well. There was more foolery yet, 
if I could remember it. 

Cass. Will you sup with me to-night, Casca? 

Casca. No, I am promised forth. 65 

Cass. Will you dine with me to-morrow? 

Casca. Ay, if I be alive, and your mind hold, and your 
dinner worth the eating. 

Cass. Good ; I will expect you. 

Casca. Do so : farewell both. [Exit Casca. 

Bru. What a blunt 66 fellow is this grown to be ! 
He was quick mettle when he went to school. 

Cass. So is he now in execution 
Of any bold or noble enterprise, 

62 A charming invention. Cicero had a long, sharp, agile tongue, and 
was mighty fond of using it; and nothing was more natural, supposing him 
to have been present, than that he should snap off some keen sententious 
sayings ; prudently veiling them however in a foreign language from all but 
those who might safely understand them. 

63 The phrase " it is Greek to me " is still in common use for any thing 
that is not understood. 

64 There were set up images of Caesar in the city, with diadems upon 
their heads like kings. Those the two tribunes, Flavius and Marullus, went 
and pulled down, and furthermore, meeting with them that first saluted 
Caesar as king, they committed them to prison. The people followed them 
rejoicing at it, and called them Brutuses, because of Brutus who had in old 
times driven the kings out of Rome. Caesar was so offended withal, that he 
deprived Marullus and Flavius of their tribuneships. — PLUTARCH. 

65 Shakespeare has /ortk very often with the sense of out or abroad. 

66 Blunt here means, apparently, dull or slow; alluding to the "tardy 
form " Casca has just " put on " in winding so long about the matter before 
coming to the point. — "He was quick mettle" means, He was of a lively 
spirit. Mettlesome is still used of spirited horses. See page 46, note 6; 
also, Hamlet, page 51, note 27. 



SCENE II. JULIUS CESAR. 6 1 

However he puts on this tardy form. 07 
This rudeness is a sauce to his good wit, 
Which gives men stomach to digest his words 
With better appetite. 

Bru. And so it is. For this time I will leave you : 
To-morrow, if you please to speak with me, 
I will come home to you ; or, if you will, 
Come home to me, and I will wait for you. 

Cass. I will do so : till then, think of the world. — 

[Exit Brutus. 
Well, Brutus, thou art noble ; yet, I see, 
Thy honourable metal may be wrought 
From that it is disposed : 68 therefore 'tis meet 
That noble minds keep ever with their likes ; 
For who so firm that cannot be seduced ? 
Caesar doth bear me hard, 69 but he loves Brutus : 
If I were Brutus now, and he were Cassius, 
He should not humour me. 70 I will this night, 

67 However for although, or notwithstanding. Often so. — " Tardy form " 
is form of tardiness. So the Poet lias shady stealth for stealing shadow, and 
"negligent danger " for danger fro?n negligence. 

68 Wrought from what, or from that which it is disposed to. The Poet 
has divers instances of prepositions thus omitted. — Of course Cassius is 
here chuckling over the effect his talk has had upon Brutus. He evidently 
regards Brutus as a noble putty-head, and goes on to take order for mould- 
ing him accordingly. 

69 The phrase to bear one hard occurs three times in this play, but no- 
where else in Shakespeare. It seems to have been borrowed from horse- 
manship, and to mean carries a tight rein, or reins hard, like one who dis- 
trusts his horse. So before : " You bear too stubborn and too strange a 
hand over your friend that loves you " ; that is, " You hold me too hard on 
the bit, like a strange rider, who is doubtful of his steed, and not like one 
who confides in his faithful horse, and so rides him with an easy rein." — 
For this note I am indebted to Mr. Joseph Crosby. 

70 To humour a man, as the word is here used, is to turn and wind and 
manage him by watching his moods and crotchets, and touching him ac- 



62 JULIUS CESAR. ACT I. 

In several hands, 71 in at his window throw, 

As if they came from several citizens, 

Writings all tending to the great opinion 

That Rome holds of his name ; 72 wherein obscurely 

Caesar's ambition shall be glanced at : 

And, after this, let Caesar seat him sure ; 

For we will shake him, or worse days endure. 73 [Exit. 

Scene III. — The Same. A Street. 

Thunder and Lightning. Enter, from opposite sides, Casca, 
with his sword drawn, and Cicero. 

Cic. Good even, Casca : brought you Caesar home ? 1 
Why are you breathless ? and why stare you so ? 

cordingly. It is somewhat in doubt whether the last he refers to Brutus or 
to Cassar. If to Brutus, the meaning of course is, " he should not play upon 
my humours and fancies as I do upon his." And this sense is, I think, 
fairly required by the context. For the whole speech is occupied with the 
speaker's success in cajoling Brutus, and with plans for cajoling and shaping 
him still further. 

71 Hands for handwritings, of course. The POet has it repeatedly so. 

7 2 Now when Cassius felt his friends, and did stir them up against Caesar, 
they all agreed, and promised to take part with him, so Brutus were the 
chief of their conspiracy. For they told him that so high an enterprise and 
attempt as that did not so much require men of manhood and courage to 
draw their swords, as it stood them upon to have a man of such estimation 
as Brutus, to make every man boldly think that by his only presence the 
fact were holy and just. — PLUTARCH. 

73 " We will either shake him, or endure worse days in suffering the con- 
sequences of our attempt." — The Poet makes Cassius overflow with intense 
personal spite against Caesar. This is in accordance with what he read 
in Plutarch : " Cassius, being a choleric man, and hating Caesar privately 
more than he did the tyranny openly, incensed Brutus against him. It is 
also reported that Brutus could evil away with the tyranny, and that Cassius 
hated the tyrant." Of course tyranny as here used means royalty. 

1 To bring for to escort or go along with was very common. 



scene ill. JULIUS CAESAR. 63 

Casca. Are not you moved, when all the sway of Earth 

Shakes like a thing unfirm? 2 O Cicero ! 

I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds 

Have rived the knotty oaks ; and I have seen 

Th' ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam, 

To be exalted with the threatening clouds : 3 

But never till to-night, never till now, 

Did I go through a tempest dropping fire. 

Either there is a civil strife in Heaven, 

Or else the world, too saucy with the gods, 

Incenses them to send destruction. 4 

Cic. Why, saw you any thing more wonderful ? 5 
Casca. A common slave — you'd know him well by 
sight 6 — 

Held up his left hand, which did flame and burn 

Like twenty torches join'd ; and yet his hand, 

Not sensible 7 of fire, remain'd unscorch'd. 

Be'sides, — I ha' not since put up my sword, — 

Against the Capitol I met a lion, 

Who glared upon me, and went surly by, 

Without annoying me : and there were drawn 

Upon a heap 8 a hundred ghastly women, 

2 Sway for constitution ox order, probably. In such a raging of the ele- 
ments, it seems as if the whole world were going to pieces, or as if the 
Earth's steadfastness were growing unfirm, that is, unsteady. 

3 So as, or insomuch as to be exalted with the threatening clouds. The 
Poet often uses the infinitive mood thus. 

4 Either the gods are fighting among themselves, or else they are making 
war on the world for being too saucy with them. 

5 More is here equivalent to else : " Saw you any thing more that was 
wonderful ? " 

6 " You would recognise him as a common slave, from his looks." 

7 Sensible, here, is sensitive, or having sensation. Repeatedly so. 

8 " Drawn upon a heap " is drawn together in a crowd. 



64 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT I. 

Transformed with their fear ; who swore they saw 
Men, all in fire, walk up and down the streets. 
And yesterday the bird of night 9 did sit 
Even at noon-day upon the market-place, 
Hooting and shrieking. When these prodigies 
Do so conjointly meet, 10 let not men say, 
These are their reasons ; they are natural ; u 

9 The old Roman horror of this bird is well shown in a passage of Hol- 
land's Pliny, as quoted in the Clarendon edition : " The screechowl be- 
tokeneth always some heavy news, and is most execrable in the presages of 
public affairs. In sum, he is the very monster of the night. There fortuned 
one of them to enter the very sanctuary of the Capitol, in that year when 
Sextus Papellio Ister and Lucius Pedanius were Consuls ; whereupon, at 
the Nones of March, the city of Rome that year made general processions, 
to appease the wrath of the gods, and was solemnly purged by sacrifices." 

10 Certainly destiny may easier be foreseen than avoided, considering 
the strange and wonderful' signs that were said to be seen before Caesar's 
death. For, touching the fires in the element, and spirits running up and 
down in the night, and also the solitary birds to be seen at noondays sitting 
in the great market-place, are not all these signs perhaps worth the noting, 
in such a wonderful chance as happened ? But Strabo the philosopher 
writeth, that divers men were seen going up and down in fire, and further- 
more, that there was a slave of the soldiers that did cast a marvellous burn- 
ing flame out of his hand, insomuch as they that saw it thought he had been 
burnt ; but when the fire was out, it was found he had no hurt. Caesar self 
also, doing sacrifice unto the gods, found that one of the beasts which was 
sacrificed had no heart : and that was a strange thing in nature, how a beast 
could live without a heart. — Plutarch. 

11 The language is obscure, but the meaning probably is, " These things 
have their reasons ; they proceed from natural causes." Casca refers to the 
doctrine of the Epicureans, who were slow to believe that such elemental 
pranks had any moral significance in them, or that moral causes had any 
thing to do with them ; and held that the reasons of them were to be sought 
for in the simple working of natural laws and forces. The text has a good 
comment in All's Well that Ends Well, ii. 3 : " They say miracles are past ; 
and we have our philosophical persons, to make modern and familiar, 
things supernatural and causeless. Hence it is that we make trifles of ter- 
rors ; ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge, when we should sub- 
mit ourselves to an unknown fear." 



SCENE III. JULIUS CAESAR. 65 

For I believe they are portentous things 
Unto the climate 12 that they point upon. 

Cic. Indeed, it is a strange -disposed time : 
But men may construe things after their fashion, 
Clean 13 from the purpose of the things themselves. 
Comes Caesar to the Capitol to-morrow? 

Casca. He doth ; for he did bid Antonius 
Send word to you he would be there to-morrow. 

Cic. Good night, then, Casca : this disturbed sky 
Is not to walk in. 

Casca. Farewell, Cicero. \Exit Cicero. 

Enter Cassius. 

Cass. Who's there? 

Casca. A Roman. 

Cass. Casca, by your voice. 

Casca. Your ear is good. Cassius, what night is this ! 14 

Cass. A very pleasing night to honest men. 

Casca. Who ever knew the Heavens menace so ? 

Cass. Those that have known the Earth so full of faults. 
For my part, I have walk'd about the streets, 
Submitting me unto the perilous night ; 
And, thus umbraced, 15 Casca, as you see, 
Have bared my bosom to the thunder-stone : 16 

12 Climate for region or cotintry. In Hamlet we have climature with the 
same meaning. Also " Christian climate" in Richard the Second, iv. 1. 

13 Clean, here, is altogether, entirely, or quite. Repeatedly so. See Rich- 
ard the 'Second, page 97, note 2. — The mild scepticism of Cicero's speech 
is very graceful and apt. 

14 We should say, " What a night is this ! " In such exclamative phrases, 
as also in some others, the Poet omits the article when his verse wants it so. 

15 Unbuttoned. Shakespeare gives the Romans his own dressing-gear. 

16 Thunder- stone is the old word for thunder-bolt. 



66 JULIUS C^SAR. ACT I. 

And when the cross 17 blue lightning seem'd to open 
The breast of Heaven, I did present myself 
Even in the aim and very flash of it. 

Casca. But wherefore did you so much tempt the Heavens ? 
It is the part of men to fear and tremble, 
When the most mighty gods by tokens send 
Such dreadful heralds to astonish us. 

Cass. You are dull, Casca ; and those sparks of life 
That should be in a Roman you do want, 
Or else you use not. You look pale, and gaze, 
And put on fear, and case yourself in wonder, 18 
To see the strange impatience of the Heavens : 
But if you would consider the true cause 
Why all these fires, why all these gliding ghosts, 
Why birds and beasts, from quality and kind; 19 
Why old men fool, and children calculate ; — 
Why all these things change from their ordinance, 
Their natures, and preformed faculties, 
To monstrous quality ; 20 — why, you shall find 

1" Cross for the zigzag path of lightning. So in King Lear, iv. 7 : " Was 
this a face to stand in the most terrible and nimble stroke of quick, cross 
lightning ? " 

18 That is, put on a look or expression of wonder. So in Muck Ado, iv. 1 : 
" I am so attired in wonder, I know not what to say." 

19 Quality is office or calling. Often so. Kind is nature. Also frequent. 
So in Antony and Cleopatra, last scene : " The worm will do his kind" ; that 
is, will do as its nature is or prompts. The same in the old proverb, " The 
cat will after kind." — To make sense of the line, some word must be under- 
stood ; probably change, from the second line below. 

20 The grammar of this passage is rather confused, yet the meaning is 
clear enough ; the general idea being that of elements and animals, and 
even of old men and children, acting in a manner out of or against their 
nature ; or changing their natures and original faculties from the course, in 
which they were ordained to move, to monstrous or unnatural modes of 
action. 



SCENE III. 



JULIUS CESAR. 67 



That Heaven hath infused them with these spirits, 
To make them instruments of fear and warning 
Unto some monstrous state. 21 Now could I, Casca, 
Name thee a man most like this dreadful night ; 
That thunders, lightens, opens graves, and roars, 
As doth the lion, in the Capitol ; 22 
A man no mightier than thyself or me 
In personal action ; yet prodigious grown, 
And fearful, as these strange eruptions are. 

Casca. 'Tis Caesar that you mean ; is it not, Cassius ? 

Cass. Let it be who it is : 23 for Romans now 
Have thews 24 and limbs like to their ancestors ; 
But, woe the while ! our fathers' minds are dead, 
And we are govern'd with 25 our mothers' spirits ; 
Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish. 

Casca. Indeed, they say the Senators to-morrow 
Mean to establish Caesar as a king • 
And he shall wear his crown by sea and land, 
In every place, save here in Italy. 

Cass. I know where I will wear this dagger then ; 

21 That is, some prodigious or abnormal condition of things. Elsewhere 
the Poet has " enormous state," with the same meaning. See King Lear, 
page no, note 31. — As Cassius is an avowed Epicurean, it may seem out 
of character to make him speak thus. But he is here talking for effect, his 
aim being to kindle and instigate Casca into the conspiracy ; and to this end 
he does not stick to say what he does not himself believe. 

22 This reads as if a lion were kept in the Capitol to roar for them. But 
the meaning is that Caesar roars in the Capitol, like a lion. Perhaps Cassius 
has the idea of Caesar's claiming or aspiring to be among men what the lion 
is among beasts. 

23 Meaning, probably, " no matter who it is " ; as the Clarendon notes. 

24 Thews for sinews or muscles. Always so in Shakespeare. 

25 Present usage would say " governed by'' But Shakespeare very often 
uses with to denote the agent of a passive verb. So afterwards in this play : 
" Here is himself, marr'd, as you see, with traitors." 



68 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT i. 

Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius : 

Therein, ye gods, you make the weak most strong ; 

Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat : 

Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, 

Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, 

Can be retentive to the strength of spirit ; 26 

But life, being weary of these worldly bars, 

Never lacks power to dismiss itself. 

If I know this, know all the world besides, 

That part of tyranny that I do bear 

I can shake off at pleasure. [Thunders still. 

Casca. So can I : 

So every bondman in his own hand bears 
The power to cancel his captivity. 

Cass. And why should Caesar be a tyrant then ? 
Poor man ! I know he would not be a wolf, 
But that he sees the Romans are but sheep : 
He were no lion, were not Romans hinds. 
Those that with haste will make a mighty fire 
Begin it with weak straws : 27 what trash is Rome, 
What rubbish, and what offal, when it serves 
For the base matter to illuminate 
So vile a thing as Caesar ! 28 But, O grief, 
Where hast thou led me ? I perhaps speak this 
Before a willing bondman : then I know 

26 Can retain, hold in, or repress man's energy of soul. 

27 The idea seems to be that, as men start a huge fire with worthless 
straws or shavings, so Caesar is using the degenerate Romans of the time, 
to set the whole world a-blaze with his own glory. Cassius's enthusiastic 
hatred of " the mightiest Julius " is irresistibly delightful. For " a good 
hater " is the next best thing to a true friend ; and Cassius's honest gushing 
malice is far better than Brutus's stabbing sentimentalism. 

28 To shed splendour upon him, or to make a light for him to shine by. 



SCENE III. JULIUS CESAR. 69 

My answer must be made ; 29 but I am arm'd, 
And dangers are to me indifferent. 

Casca. You speak to Casca ; and to such a man 
That is no fleering tell-tale. 30 Hold, my hand : 
Be factious for redress of all these griefs ; 31 
And I will set this foot of mine as far 
As who goes farthest. 

Cass. There's a bargain made. 

Now know you, Casca, I have moved already 
Some certain of the noblest-minded Romans 
To undergo 32 with me an enterprise 
Of honourable-dangerous consequence ; 
And I do know, by this, 33 they stay for me 
In Pompey's porch : for now, this fearful night, 
There is no stir or walking in the streets ; 
And the complexion of the element 

29 The meaning is, " Perhaps you will go and blab to Caesar all I have 
said about him ; and then he will call me to account for it. Very well ; go 
tell him ; and let him do his worst : I care not." 

30 Fleering unites the two senses of flattering and mocking, and so is just 
the right epithet for a tell-tale, who flatters you into saying that of another 
which you ought not to say, and then mocks you by going to that other 
and telling what you have said. — The meaning of the next clause is, 
" Hold, here is my hand " ; as men clasp hands in striking or sealing a bar- 
gain. 

31 Be factious is, probably, form a party or faction. Or it may mean " Be 
active"; the literal meaning of factious. — Here, as often, griefs is put for 
grievances ; that which causes griefs. 

32 Undergo for undertake. So in 2 Henry the Fourth, i. 3 : " How able 
such a work to undergo'' And in several other places. 

33 By this for by this time. So in various instances. — Pompey's porch 
was a spacious adjunct to the huge theatre that Pompey had built in the 
Campus Martius, outside of the city proper; and where, as Plutarch says,. 
" was set up an image of Pompey, which the city had made and consecrated 
in honour of him." There it was, in fact, that the stabbing took place, 
though Shakespeare transfers this to the Capitol. 



70 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT I. 

Is favour'd like 34 the work we have in hand, 
Most bloody-fiery and most terrible. 

Casca. Stand close 35 awhile, for here comes one in haste. 

Cass. Tis Cinna ; I do know him by his gait ; 
He is a friend. — 

Enter Cinna. 

Cinna, where haste you so ? 

Cin. To find out you. Who's that ? Metellus Cimber ? 

Cass. No, it is Casca ; one incorporate 36 
To our attempt. Am I not stay'd for, Cinna ? 

Cin. I'm glad on't. What a fearful night is this ! 
There's two or three of us have seen strange sights. 

Cass. Am I not stay'd for? tell me. 

Cin. Yes, 

You are. O, Cassius, if you could but win 
The noble Brutus to our party, — 

Cass. Be you content. Good Cinna, take this paper, 
And look you lay it in the praetor's chair, 
Where Brutus may best find it • and throw this 
In at his window ; set this up with wax 
Upon old Brutus' statue : all this done, 
Repair to Pompey's porch, where you shall find us. 
Is Decius Brutus and Trebonius there ? 

Cin. All but Metellus Cimber ; and he's gone 

34 Is featured, has the same aspect or countenance. Shakespeare often 
uses favour in this sense. In the Poet's time, it was much in fashion to use 
element for sky. We have a ludicrous instance of this from Falstaff, in 
2 Henry the Fourth, iv. 3 : "If you do not all show like gilt two-pences to 
me, and I, in the clear sky of fame, o'ershine you as much as the full Moon 
doth the cinders of the element, which show like pins' heads to her, believe 
not the word of a noble." 

35 Close is secret or in concealment. A frequent usage. 

36 Incorporate is closely united, like the several parts of the body. 



scene in. JULIUS CAESAR. 71 

To seek you at your house. Well, I will hie, 37 
And so bestow these papers as you bade me. 

Cass. That done, repair to Pompey's theatre. — 

[Exit Cinna. 
Come, Casca, you and I will yet, ere day, 
See Brutus at his house : three parts of him 
Is 38 ours already ; and the man entire, 
Upon the next encounter, yields him ours. 

Casca. O, he sits high in all the people's hearts ! 
And that which would appear offence in us, 
His countenance, like richest alchemy, 39 
Will change to virtue and to worthiness. 

Cass. Him, and his worth, and our great need of him, 
You have right well conceited. 40 Let us go, 
For it is after midnight ; and, ere day, 
We will awake him, and be sure of him. [Exeunt. 



87 Hie is hasten. So in Hamlet, i. 1 : " Th' extravagant and erring spirit 
hies to his confine." And in many other places. 

38 Such combinations as parts and is were not then bad grammar. 
89 Alchemy is the old ideal art of turning base metals into gold. 
40 Conceited is conceived, understood, or apprehended. 



72 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT II. 



ACT II. 

Scene I. — Rome. Brutus's Orchard! 

Enter Brutus. 

Bru. What, Lucius, ho ! — 
I cannot, by the progress of the stars, 
Give guess how near to day. — Lucius, I say ! — 
I would it were my fault to sleep so soundly. — 
When, Lucius, when ! 2 Awake, I say ! what, Lucius ! 

Enter Lucius. 

Luc. CalPd you, my lord ? 

Bru. Get me a taper in my study, Lucius : 
When it is lighted, come and call me here. 

Luc. I will, my lord. [Exit. 

Bru. It must be by his death : 3 and, for my part, 
I know no personal cause to spurn at him, 
But for the general. 4 He would be crown'd : 
How that might change his nature, there's the question : 
It is the bright day that brings forth the adder ; 5 

1 Orchard and garden were synonymous. In Romeo and Juliet, Capulet's 
garden is twice called orchard. 

2 When! was sometimes used as an exclamation of impatience. 

3 Brutus has been casting about on all sides to find some other means to 
prevent Caesar's being king, and here gives it up that this can be done only 
by killing him. Thus the speech opens in just the right way to throw us 
back upon his antecedent meditations. 

4 The public cause. This use of general was common. 

5 The Poet is apt to be right in his observation of Nature. In a bright 
warm day the snakes come out to bask in the sun. And the idea is, that the 
sunshine of royalty will kindle the serpent in Caesar. 



SCENE I. JULIUS C^SAR. ' 73 

And that craves wary walking. Crown him ? — that : 

And then, I grant, we put a sting in him, 

That at his will he may do danger with. 6 

Th' abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins 

Remorse from power ; and, to speak truth of Caesar, 

I have not known when his affections sway'd 

More than his reason. 7 But 'tis a common proof, 8 

That lowliness is young ambition's ladder, 

Whereto the climber-upward turns his face ; 

But, when he once attains the upmost round, 

He then unto the ladder turns his back, 

Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees 9 

By which he did ascend : so Caesar may ; 

Then, lest he may, prevent. And, since the quarrel 10 

Will bear no colour for the thing he is, 

Fashion it thus, — that what he is, augmented, 

6 That is, do mischief with, and so be or prove dungerous. 

7 Some obscurity here, owing to the use of certain words in uncommon 
senses. Remorse, in Shakespeare, commonly means pity or compassion : 
here it means conscience, or conscientiousness. So in Othello, iii. 3 : " Let him 
command, and to obey shall be in me remorse, what bloody work soe'er." 
The possession of dictatorial power is apt to stifle or sear the conscience, so 
as to make a man literally remorseless, Affections, again, here stands for 
passions, as in several other instances. Finally, reason is here used in the 
same sense as remorse. So the context clearly points out ; and the con- 
science is, in a philosophical sense, the moral reason. 

8 Proof 'for fact, or the thing proved. So in Bacon's essay Of Parents and 
Children : " The proof is best when men keep their authority towards their 
children, but not their purse " ; where the meaning is, it proves, or turns out, 
best. 

9 Base degrees is lower steps ; degree being "used in its primitive sense, and 
for the rounds of the ladder. Elsewhere the Poet has base for lower. See 
Richard II., page 115, note 17. 

10 Quarrel for cause. So in the 35th Psalm of The Psalter: "Stand up 
to judge my quarrel ; avenge Thou my cause'' And Shakespeare has it 
repeatedly so. See Macbeth, page 141, note 23. 



74 r JULIUS CAESAR. ACT II. 

Would run to these and these extremities : l l 

And therefore think him as a serpent's egg, 

Which, hatch'd, would, as his kind, grow mischievous ; 

And kill him in the shell. 

Re-enter Lucius. 

Luc. The taper burneth in your closet, sir. 
Searching the window for a flint, I found 
This paper thus seal'd up ; and I am sure 
It did not lie there when I went to bed. 

Bru. Get you to bed again ; it is not day. 
Is not to-morrow, boy, the Ides of March? 

Luc. I know not, sir. 

Bru. Look in the calendar, and bring me word. 

Luc. I will, sir. [Exit. 

Bru. The exhalations, 12 whizzing in the air, 

11 Something of obscurity again. But the meaning is, " Since we have 
no show or pretext of a cause, no assignable or apparent ground of com- 
plaint, against Caesar, in what he is, or in any thing he has yet done, let us 
assume that the further addition of a crown will quite upset his nature, and 
metamorphose him into a serpent." The strain of casuistry used in this 
speech is very remarkable. Coleridge found it perplexing. Upon the sup- 
posal that Shakespeare meant Brutus for a wise and good man, the speech 
seems to me utterly unintelligible. But the Poet, I think, must have re- 
garded him simply as a well-meaning, but conceited and shallow idealist ; 
and such men are always cheating and puffing themselves with the thinnest 
of sophisms ; feeding on air, and conceiving themselves inspired ; or, as 
Gibbon puts it, " mistaking the giddiness of the head for the illumination of 
the Spirit." 

12 Exhalations for meteors, or meteoric lights ; referring to the flashes of 
lightning. In Plutarch's Opinions of Philosophers, as translated by Holland, 
we have the following: "Aristotle supposeth that all these ?neteors come of 
a dry exhalation, which, being gotten enclosed within a moist cloud, striveth 
forcibly to get forth : now, by attrition and breaking together, it causeth the 
clap of thunder." Shakespeare has meteor repeatedly in the same way. So 
in Romeo and Juliet, iii. 5 : "It is some meteor that the Sun exhales?' 



scene i. JULIUS CESAR. 75 

Give so much light that I may read by them. — 

[ Opens the paper, and reads. 
Brutus, thou sleep' st : awake and see thyself. 
Shall Rome, &c. Speak, strike, redress / — 
Brutus, thou sleep' st : awake ! — 
Such instigations have been often dropp'd 
Where I have took them up. 13 
Shall Rome, cVr. Thus must I piece it out : 
Shall Rome stand under one man's awe ? What, Rome ? 
My ancestor did from the streets of Rome 
The Tarquin drive, when he was call'd a king. — 
Speak, strike, redress / — Am I entreated, then, 
To speak and strike ? O Rome, I make thee promise, 
If the redress will follow, thou receivest 
Thy full petition at the hand of Brutus ! 

13 Here the Poet had in his eye the following from Plutarch : " For 
Brutus, his friends and countrymen, both by divers procurements and sun- 
dry rumours of the city, and by many bills also, did openly call and procure 
him to do that he did. For, under the image of his ancestor Junius Brutus, 
that drave the kings out of Rome, they wrote, ' O, that it pleased the gods 
thou wert now alive, Brutus ! ' and again, ' That thou wert here among us 
now ! ' His tribunal or chair, where he gave audience during the time he 
was Praetor, was full of such bills : ' Brutus, thou art asleep, and art not 
Brutus indeed.' " — Mr. Philip Smith, in his History of the World, comments 
upon the matter as follows : " Brutus, having joined the Pompeian standard 
with reluctance, had been the first to submit after the battle of Pharsalia, 
and had been ever since distinguished by Caesar's special favour. But hints 
which his patron was said to have dropped of Brutus's worthiness to fill his 
place aided the plausible appeals which his brother-in-law Cassius made to 
his vanity. The mind which could be caught by such tricks as placards 
hung upon the statue of the elder Brutus with the inscription, ' Would 
thou wert alive ! ' — by billets thrust into his own hands, bearing the words, 
' Brutus, thou sleepest, thou art no Brutus ! ' — had as little of stern princi- 
ple as the heart that could plant the last dagger in Caesar's bosom had of 
gratitude." The same writer ascribes, and justly too, the concocting of the 
conspiracy to " a narrow selfish jealousy of Caesar's ascendency." 



76 • JULIUS CAESAR. ACT ii. 

Re-enter Lucius. 

Luc. Sir, March is wasted fourteen days. 

\_Knocking within. 

Bru. Tis good. Go to the gate ; somebody knocks. — 

[Exit Lucius. 
Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar, 
I have not slept. 

Between the acting of a dreadful thing 
And the first motion, 14 all the interim is 
Like a phantasma 15 or a hideous dream : 
The genius and the mortal instruments 
Are then in council ; * 6 and the state of man, 

1 4 Motion for impulse, or the first budding of thought into purpose. 

15 A phantasma is a. phantom; something imagined or fancied; a vision 
of things that are not, as in a nightmare. 

!6 Commentators differ about genius here ; some taking it for the con- 
science, others for the anti-conscience. Shakespeare uses genius, spirit, and 
demon as synonymous, and all three, apparently, both in a good sense and 
in a bad ; as every man was supposed to have a good and a bad angel. 
So, in this play, we have "thy evil spirit"; in The Tempest, "our worser 
genius"; in Troilus and Cressida, " Some say the genius so cries Come! to 
him that instantly must die " ; in Antony and Cleopatra, " Thy demon, that's 
thy spirit which keeps thee " ; where, as often, keeps is guards. In these and 
some other cases, the words have some epithet or context that determines 
their meaning; but not so with genius in the text. But, in all such cases, 
the words, I think, mean the directive power of the mind. And so we often 
speak of a man's better self, or a man's worser self, according as one is in 
fact directed or drawn to good or to evil. —The sense of mortal, here, is also 
somewhat in question. The Poet sometimes uses it for perishable, or that 
which dies ; but oftener for deadly, or that which kills. Mortal instruments 
may well be held to mean the same as when Macbeth says, " I'm settled, 
and bend up each corporal agent to this terrible feat." — As Brutus is speak- 
ing with reference to his own case, he probably intends genius in a good 
sense; for the spiritual or immortal part of himself. If so, then he would 
naturally mean, by mortal, his perishable part, or his ministerial faculties, 
which shrink from executing what the directive power is urging them to. — 



SCENE I. JULIUS OESAR. 77 

Like to a little kingdom, suffers then 
The nature of an insurrection. 17 

Re-enter Lucius. 

Luc. Sir, 7 tis your brother Cassius at the door, 
Who doth desire to see you. 

Bru. Is he alone? 

Luc. No, sir, there are more with him. 

Bru. Do you know them? 

Luc. No, sir : their hats are pluck'd about their ears, 
And half their faces buried in their cloaks, 
That by no means I may discover them 
By any mark of favour. 

Bru. Let 'em enter. — {Exit Lucius. 

They are the faction. — O conspiracy, 
Shamest thou to show thy dangerous brow by night, 
When evils are most free ? 18 O, then, by day 
Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough 
To mask thy monstrous visage ? Seek none, conspiracy ; 
Hide it in smiles and affability : 
For if thou pass, thy native semblance on, 19 
Not Erebus itself were dim enough 
To hide thee from prevention. 20 

The late Professor Ferrier, however, of Aberdeen, seems to take a some- 
what different view of the passage. " Shakespeare," says he, " has a fine de- 
scription of the unsettled state of the mind when the will is hesitating about 
the perpetration of a great crime, and when the passions are threatening to 
overpower, and eventually do overpower, the reason and the conscience." 

17 That is, a kind of insurrection, or something like an insurrection. 

18 When crimes and mischiefs, or rather when evil and mischievous men 
are most free from the restraints of law, or of shame. So Hamlet speaks of 
night as the time " when Hell itself breathes out contagion to this world." 

19 " Thy native semblance being on." Ablative absolute again. 

20 " To hide thee from discovery',' which would lead to prevention. — Of 



78 JULIUS CAESAR. act it. 

Enter Cassius, Casca, Decius, Cinna, Metellus Cimber, and 

Trebonius. 

Cass. I think we are too bold upon, your rest : 
Good morrow, Brutus ; do we trouble you ? 

Bru. I have been up this hour, awake all night. 
Know I these men that come along with you? 

Cass. Yes, every man of them ; and no man here 
But honours you ; and every one doth wish 
You had but that opinion of yourself 
Which every noble Roman bears of you. 
This is Trebonius. 

Bru. He is welcome hither. 

Cass. This Decius 21 Brutus. 

Bru. He is welcome too. 

Cass. This, Casca ; this, Cinna ; and this Metellus Cimber. 

Bru. They are all welcome. — 
What watchful cares do interpose themselves 
Betwixt your eyes and night ? 

Cass. Shall I entreat a word ? 

[Brutus and Cassius whisper apart. 

Dec. Here lies the East : doth not the day break here ? 

Casca. No. 

Cin. O, pardon, sir, it doth ; and yon gray lines 

the five divisions of Hades, Erebus was, properly, the third. Shakespeare, 
however, seems to identify it with Tartarus, the lowest deep of the infernal 
world, the horrible pit where Dante locates Brutus and Cassius along with 
Judas Iscariot. 

21 Shakespeare found the name thus in Plutarch. In fact, however, it 
was Decimus, not Decius. The man is said to have been cousin to the other 
Brutus of the play. He had been one of Caesar's ablest, most favoured, and 
most trusted lieutenants, and had particularly distinguished himself in his 
naval service at Venetia and Massilia. After the murder of Csesar, he was 
found to be written down in his will as second heir. 



SCENE I. JULIUS CAESAR. 79 

That fret the clouds are messengers of day. 

Casca. You shall confess that you are both deceived. 
Here, as I point my sword, the Sun arises ; 
Which is a great way growing on the South, 
Weighing the youthful season of the year. 22 
Some two months hence, up higher toward the North 
He first presents his fire ; and the high East 
Stands, as the Capitol, directly here. 23 

Bru. Give me your hands all over, one by one. 

Cass. And let us swear our resolution. 

Bru. No, not an oath : if not the face of men, 24 
The sufferance of our souls, the time's abuse, — 
If these be motives weak, break off betimes, 
And every man hence to his idle bed ; 
So let high-sighted tyranny range on, 
Till each man drop by lottery. 25 But if these, * 

As I am sure they do, bear fire enough 
To kindle cowards, and to steel with valour 
The melting spirits of women ; then, countrymen, 

22 That is, verging or inclining towards the South, in accordance with the 
early time of the year. Weighing is considering. 

23 " The high East " is the perfect East. So the Poet has " high morning " 
for morning full-blown. — This little side-talk on an indifferent theme is very 
finely conceived, and aptly marks the men as seeking to divert off the anxious 
thoughts of the moment by any casual chat. It also serves the double pur- 
pose of showing that they are not listening, and of preventing suspicion, if 
any were listening to them. 

24 Meaning, probably, the shame and self-reproach with which Romans 
must now look each other in the face, under the consciousness of having 
fallen away from the republican spirit of their forefathers. — The change in 
the construction of the sentence gives it a more colloquial cast, without 
causing any real obscurity. 

25 Brutus seems to have in mind the capriciousness of a high-looking 
and heaven-daring oriental tyranny, where men's lives hung upon the nod 
and whim of the tyrant, as on the hazards of a lottery. 



80 JULIUS C^SAR. ACT II. 

What 26 need we any spur but our own cause 

To prick us to redress ? what other bond 

Than secret Romans, that have spoke the word, 

And will not palter? 27 and what other oath 

Than honesty to honesty engaged, 28 

That this shall be, or we will fall for it ? 

Swear priests, and cowards, and men cautelous, 29 

Old feeble carrions, 30 and such suffering souls 

That welcome wrongs ; unto bad causes swear 

Such creatures as men doubt : but do not stain 

The even virtue 31 of our enterprise, 

Nor th' insuppressive 32 mettle of our spirits, 

To think that or our cause or 33 our performance 

Did need an oath ; when every drop of blood 

That every Roman bears, and nobly bears, 

Is guilty of a several bastardy, 

If he do break the smallest particle 

Of any promise that hath pass'd from him. 

26 What for why. The Poet often has it so. And so in St. Mark, xiv. 63 : 
" What need we any further witnesses ? " 

27 To palter is to equivocate, to shuffle, as in making a promise with what 
is called " a mental reservation." 

28 Engaged is pledged, or put in pawn. A frequent usage. 

29 Cautelous is here used in the sense of deceit or fraud; though its 
original meaning is wary, circumspect, the same as cautious. The word is 
said to have caught a bad sense in passing through French hands. But, as 
the Clarendon edition notes, " the transition from caution to suspicion, and 
from suspicion to craft and deceit, is not very abrupt." 

30 Carrions for carcasses, or men as good as dead. Repeatedly so. 

31 Meaning the virtue that holds an equable and uniform tenour, always 
keeping the same high level. 

32 Insuppressive for insuppressible ; the active form with the passive sense. 
So the Poet has unexpressive for inexpressible. See, also, Hamlet, page 77, 
note 9. 

33 Or — or for either — or occurs very often in all English poetry ; as also 
nor — nor for neither — nor. — To think is by thinking. 



scene I. JULIUS CESAR. 8 1 

Cass. But what of Cicero ? Shall we sound him ? 
I think he will stand very strong with us. 

Casca. Let us not leave him out. 

Cin. No, by no means. 

Met. O, let us have him ! for his silver hairs 
Will purchase us a good opinion, 34 
And buy men's voices to commend our deeds : 
It shall be said, his judgment ruled our hands ; 
Our youths and wildness shall no whit appear, 
But all be buried in his gravity. 

Bru. O, name him not ! let us not break with him ; 35 
For he will never follow any thing 
That other men begin. 

Cass. Then leave him out. 

Casca. Indeed, he is not fit. 

Dec. Shall no man else be touch'd but only Caesar ? 

Cass. Decius, well urged. — I think it is not meet, 
Mark Antony, so well beloved of Caesar, 
Should outlive Caesar : we shall find of him 36 
A shrewd contriver ; and you know, his means, 
If he improve them, may well stretch so far 
As to annoy us all : which to prevent, 
Let Antony and Caesar fall together. 



34 Opinion for reputation or estimation. Often so. Observe the thread of 
association in silver, purchase, and buy. 

85 Old language for " let us not break the matter to him." — This bit of 
dialogue is very charming. Brutus knows full well that Cicero is not the 
man to play second fiddle to any of them ; that if he have any thing to do 
with the enterprise it must be as the leader of it ; and that is just what 
Brutus wants to be himself. Merivale thinks it a great honour to Cicero, 
that the conspirators did not venture to propose the matter to him. 

3 6 We should say " find in him." So in The Merchant, iii. 5 : " Even 
such a husband hast thou of me as she is for a wife." 



82 JULIUS CLESAR. ACT II. 

Bru. Our course will seem too bloody, Caius Cassius, 
To cut the head off, and then hack the limbs, 
Like wrath in death, and envy 37 afterwards; 
For Antony is but a limb of Caesar. 
Let us be sacrificers, but not butchers, Caius. 
We all stand up against the spirit of Caesar ; 
And in the spirit of men there is no blood : 
O, that we then could come by Caesar's spirit, 
And not dismember Caesar ! But, alas, 
Caesar must bleed for it ! And, gentle friends, 
Let's kill him boldly, but not wrathfully ; 
Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods, 
Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds : 
And let our hearts, as subtle masters do, 
Stir up their servants to an act of rage, 
And after seem to chide 'em. 38 This shall mark 
Our purpose necessary, 39 and not envious ; 
Which so appearing to the common eyes, 
We shall be call'd purgers, 40 not murderers. 

37 Here, as commonly in Shakespeare, envy is malice or hatred. And so, 
a little after, envious is malicious. — North's Plutarch gives the matter of 
this passage as follows : " They consulted whether they should kill An- 
tonius with Csesar. But Brutus would in no wise consent to it, saying that, 
venturing on such an enterprise as that, for the maintenance of law and jus- 
tice, it ought to be clear from all villainy. Yet they, fearing Antonius's power, 
and the authority of his office, appointed certain of the conspiracy, that when 
Caesar were gone into the Senate, and while others should execute their 
enterprise, they should keep Antonius in a talk out of the Senate-house." 

38 So the King proceeds with Hubert in King John. And so men often 
proceed when they wish to have a thing done, and to shirk the responsi- 
bility; setting it on by dark hints and allusions, and then, after it is done, 
affecting to blame or to scold the doers of it. 

39 That is, " will mark our purpose as necessary," or the offspring of ne- 
cessity. The indiscriminate use of shall and will is frequent. 

40 Meaning healers, who cleanse the land from the disease of tyranny. 



SCENE I. JULIUS CAESAR. 83 

And for Mark Antony, think not of him ; 
For he can do no more than Caesar's arm 
When Caesar's head is off. 

Cass. Yet I do fear him ; 

For in th' ingrafted love he bears to Caesar — 

Bru. Alas, good Cassius, do not think of him : 
If he love Caesar, all that he can do 
Is to himself, — take thought and die 41 for Caesar : 
And that were much he should ; for he is given 
To sports, to wildness, and much company. 

Treb. There is no fear in him ; 42 let him not die ; 
For he will live, and laugh at this hereafter. [ Clock strikes. 

Bru.. Peace ! count the clock. 

Cass. The clock hath stricken three. 

Treb. 'Tis time to part. 

Cass. But it is doubtful yet 

Wher Caesar will come forth to-day or no ; 
For he is superstitious grown of late, 
Quite from the main 43 opinion he held once 
Of fantasy, of dreams, and ceremonies. 44 

41 " Think and die," or " take thought and die," is an old phrase for 
grieve one's self to death : and it would be much indeed, a very wonderful 
thing, if Antony should fall into any killing sorrow, such a light-hearted, 
jolly companion as he is. So the Poet uses thinh and thought repeatedly. 
And so in the Scripture phrases, " take no thought for your life," and " take 
no thought for the morrow," the Greek word translated take thought prop- 
erly means to be anxious or solicitous. 

42 No fear on account of him, or because of him, is the meaning. So in 
is used in several other places. See Macbeth, page 99, note 7. 

43 Great, strong, mighty are among the old senses of main. And from, in 
Shakespeare, often has the force of contrary to. So in Hamlet's saying, " is 
from the purpose of playing." 

44 Caesar was, in his philosophy, an Epicurean, as most of the educated 
Romans then also were. Hence he was, in opinion, strongly sceptical about 
dreams and ceremonial auguries. Nevertheless, as is apt to be the case 



84 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT II. 

It may be, these apparent 45 prodigies, 
The unaccustom'd terror of this night, 
And the persuasion of his augurers, 
May hold him from the Capitol to-day. ^ 

Dec. Never fear that : if he be so resolved, 
I can o'ersway him ; for he loves to hear 
That unicorns may be betray'd with trees, 
And bears with glasses, elephants with holes, 
Lions with toils, 46 and men with flatterers : 
But, when I tell him he hates flatterers, 
He says he does, being then most flattered. 
Let me work ; 

For I can give his humour the true bent, 
And I will bring him to the Capitol. 

Cass. Nay, we will all of us be there to fetch him. 

Brit. By the eighth hour : is that the uttermost ? 

Cm. Be that the uttermost ; and fail not then. 

Met. Caius Ligarius doth bear Caesar hard, 
Who rated him for speaking well of Pompey : 
I wonder none of you have thought of him. 

Bru. Now, good Metellus, go along by him : 47 

with sceptics and freethinkers, his conduct, especially in his later years, was 
marked with many gross instances of superstitious practice. 

45 Apparent, here, is evident or manifest. A frequent usage. 

40 The way to catch that fabulous old beast, the unicorn, is, to stand be- 
fore a tree, and, when he runs at you, to slip aside, and let him stick his horn 
into the tree : then you have him. See The Faerie Queene, ii. 5, 10. — 
Bears are said to have been caught by putting looking-glasses in their way , 
they being so taken with the images of themselves, that the hunters could 
easily master them. — Elephants were beguiled into pitfalls, lightly covered 
over with hurdles and turf; a bait being placed thereon, to tempt them. — 
Toil is trap or snare. So in Antony and Cleopatra, v. 2 : " As she would 
catch another Antony in her strong toil of grace." 

47 That is, by his house : " make that your way home." 



SCENE I. 



JULIUS CAESAR. . 85 



He loves me well, and I have given him reason ; 48 
Send him but hither, and I'll fashion him. 

Cass. The morning comes upon's : we'll leave you, Bru- 
tus : — 
And, friends, disperse yourselves ; but all remember 
What you have said, and show yourselves true Romans. 

Bru. Good gentlemen, look fresh and merrily ; 
Let not our looks put on our purposes ; 4<J 
But bear it as our Roman actors do, 
With untired spirits and formal constancy : 
And so, good-morrow to you every one. — 

\_Exeunt all but Brutus. 
Boy ! Lucius ! — Fast asleep ? It is no matter ; 
Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber : 50 
Thou hast no figures nor no fantasies, 
Which busy care draws in the brains of men ; 
Therefore thou sleep'st so sound. 

Enter Portia. 

Por. Brutus, my lord ! 

Bru. Portia, what mean you ? wherefore rise you now ? 
It is not for your health thus to commit 
Your weak condition to the raw-cold morning. 

Por. Nor for yours neither. You've ungently, Brutus, 

48 The meaning probably is, " given him reason to love me." 

49 " Let not our looks betray our purposes by wearing, or being attired 
with, any indication of them." 

50 The compound epithet honey-heavy is very expressive and apt. The 
" dew of slumber " is called heavy because it makes the subject feel heavy, 
and honey-heavy because the heaviness it induces is sweet. — Brutus is natu- 
rally led to contrast the free and easy state of the boy's mind with that of 
his own, which the excitement of his present undertaking is drawing full of 
visions and images of trouble. 



86 ■ JULIUS CAESAR. act 11. 

Stole from my bed : and yesternight, at supper, 

You suddenly arose, and walk'd about, 

Musing and sighing, with your arms across ; 

And, when I ask'd you what the matter was, 

You stared upon me with ungentle looks : 

I urged you further ; then you scratch'd your head, 

And too impatiently stamp 'd with your foot : 

Yet I insisted, yet you answer'd not ; 

But, with an angry wafture of your hand, 

Gave sign for me to leave you. So I did ; 

Fearing to strengthen that impatience 

Which seem'd too much enkindled ; and withal 

Hoping it was but an effect of humour, 

Which sometime hath his hour with every man. 

It will not let you eat, nor talk, nor sleep ; 

And, could it work so much upon your shape 

As it hath much prevail'd on your condition, 51 

I should not know you, Brutus. Dear my lord, 

Make me acquainted with your cause of grief. 

Brit. I am not well in health, and that is all. 

For. Brutus is wise, and, were he not in health, 
He would embrace the means to come by it. 

Bru. Why, so I do. Good Portia, go to bed. 

For. Is Brutus sick? and is it physical 52 
To walk unbraced, and suck up the humours 
Of the dank morning ? What, is Brutus sick, 
And will he steal out of his wholesome bed, 
To dare the vile contagion of the night, 

51 Condition was much used for temper or disposition. The term ill-con- 
ditioned is still in use for a cross-grained, irascible, or quarrelsome dispo- 
sition, or an ugly temper. 

52 The Poet has physical again for wholesome or medicinal, in Coriolanus, 
i. 5 : " The blood 1 drop is rather physical than dangerous to me." 



SCENE I. JULIUS CAESAR. 87 

And tempt the rheumy 53 and unpurged air 
To add unto his sickness ? No, my Brutus ; 
You have some sick offence within your mind, 
Which, by the right and virtue of my place, 
I ought to know of : and, upon my knees, 
I charge you, by my once-commended beauty, 
By all your vows of love, and that great vow 
Which did incorporate and make us one, 
That you unfold to me, yourself, your half, 
Why you are heavy, and what men to-night 
Have had resort to you ; for here have been 
Some six or seven, who did hide their faces 
Even from darkness. 

Bru. Kneel not, gentle Portia. 

For. I should not need, if you were gentle Brutus. 
Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus, 
Is it excepted I should know no secrets 
That appertain to you ? Am I yourself 
But, as it were, in sort or limitation, — 
To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed, 
And talk to you sometimes ? Dwell I but in the suburbs 
Of your good pleasure ? 54 If it be no more, 
Portia is Brutus' harlot, not his wife. 

Bru. You are my true and honourable wife ; 
As dear to me as are the ruddy drops 

63 Rheum was specially used of the fluids that issue from the eyes or 
mouth. So in Hamlet we have " bisson rheutn " lor blinding tears. Rheumy 
here means that state of the air which causes the unhealthy issue of such 
fluids, or perhaps which makes people rheumatic. So, in A Midsummer- 
Night 's Dream, ii. i, Titania speaks of the Moon as "washing all the air, 
that rheumatic diseases do abound."' 

54 In the outskirts or borders, and not at the centre or near the heart. 
The image is exceedingly apposite and expressive. 



88 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT II. 

That visit my sad heart. 55 

For. If this were true, then should I know this secret. 
1 grant I am a woman ; but withal 
A woman that Lord Brutus took to wife : 
I grant I am a woman ; but withal 
A woman well-reputed, Cato's daughter. 
Think you I am no stronger than my sex, 
Being so father'd and so husbanded? 
Tell me your counsels, I will not disclose 'em. 
I have made strong proof of my constancy, 
Giving myself a voluntary wound 
Here in the thigh : can I bear that with patience, 
And not my husband's secrets ? 

Bru. O ye gods, 

Render me worthy of this noble wife ! 56 — \Kno eking within. 

£5 This embodies what was then known touching the circulation of the 
blood. William Harvey was born in 1578, fourteen years after Shakespeare, 
and his discovery was not published till 1628, twelve years after the Poet's 
death. The general fact of the circulation of the blood was known in ancient 
times ; and Harvey's discovery lay in ascertaining the modus operandi of it, 
and in reducing it to matter of strict science. 

56 Because she would not ask her husband what he ailed before she had 
made some proof by her self, she took a little razor, such as barbers occupy 
to pare men's nails, and, causing her maids and women to go out of her 
chamber, gave herself a great gash withal in her thigh, that she was straight 
all of a gore blood ; and incontinently after a vehement fever took her, by 
reason of the pain of her wound. Then, perceiving her husband was mar- 
vellously out of quiet, and that he could take no rest, even in her greatest 
pain of all she spake in this sort unto him : " I being, O Brutus, the daugh- 
ter of Cato was married unto thee, not to be thy companion in bed and at 
board only, like a harlot, but to be partaker also with thee of thy good and 
evil fortune. Now, for thyself, I can find no cause of fault in thee, touching 
our match. But, for my part, how may I show my duty towards thee, and 
how much I would do for thy sake, if I cannot constantly bear a secret mis- 
chance or grief with thee, which requireth secresy and fidelity ? I confess 
that a woman's wit commonly is too weak to keep a secret safely; but yet, 



scene I. JULIUS C/ESAR. 89 

Hark, hark ! one knocks : Portia, go in awhile ; 
And by-and-by thy bosom shall partake 
The secrets of my heart : 
All my engagements I will construe to thee, 
All the charactery of my sad brows : 57 
Leave me with haste. [Exit Portia.] — Lucius, who's that 
knocks ? 

Re-enter Lucius with Ligarius. 

Luc. Here is a sick man that would speak with you. 

Bru. Caius Ligarius, that Metellus spake of. — 
Boy, stand aside. — Caius Ligarius, — how ! 

Lig. Vouchsafe good-morrow from a feeble tongue. 

Bru. O, what a time have you chose out, brave Caius, 
To wear a kerchief ! 58 Would you were not sick ! 

Lig. I am not sick, if Brutus have in hand 
Any exploit worthy the name of honour. 

Brutus, good education and the company of virtuous men have some power 
to reform the defect of nature. And, for myself, I have this benefit, more- 
over, that I am the daughter of Cato and wife of Brutus. This notwith- 
standing, I did not trust to any of these things before, until that now I have 
found by experience, that no pain or grief whatsoever can overcome me.'' 
With those words she showed him her wound on her thigh, and told him 
what she had done to prove herself. Brutus was amazed to hear what she 
said unto him ; and, lifting up his hands to heaven, he besought the gods to 
give him the grace he might bring his enterprise to so good pass, that he 
might be found a husband worthy of so noble a wife as Portia. So he then 
did comfort her the best he could. — PLUTARCH. 

57 Charactery is defined " writing by characters or strange marks." Bru- 
tus therefore means that he will divulge to her the secret cause of the sad- 
ness marked on his countenance. 

58 It was a common practice in England for those who were sick to wear 
a kerchief on their heads. So in Fuller's Worthies of Cheshire : " If any 
there be sick, they make him a posset and tye a kerchief on his head; and if 
that will not mend him, then God be merciful to him." 



90 JULIUS CAESAR. act n. 

Bru. Such an exploit have I in hand, Ligarius, 
Had you a healthful ear to hear of it. 

Lig. By all the gods that Romans bow before, 
I here discard my sickness. Soul of Rome ! 
Brave son, derived from honourable loins ! 
Thou, like an exorcist, 59 hast conjured up 
My mortified spirit. 60 Now bid me run, 
And I will strive with things impossible ; 
Yea, get the better of them. 61 What's to do? 

Bru. A piece of work that will make sick men whole. 

Lig, But are not some whole that we must make sick ? 

Bru. That must we also. What it is, my Caius, 
I shall unfold to thee, as we are going, 
To whom it must be done. 

Lig. Set on your foot ; 

And with a heart new-fired I follow you, 
To do I know not what : but it sufhceth 
That Brutus leads me on. 

Bru. Follow me, then. \_Exeunt. 

59 In Shakespeare's time, exorcist and conjurer were used indifferently. 
The former has since come to mean only one who drives away spirits ; the 
latter, one who calls them up. 

60 That is, " my spirit which was dead in me." Such is the literal mean- 
ing of mortified ; and so the Poet has it repeatedly. 

61 Amongst Pompey's friends, there was one called Caius Ligarius, who 
had been accused unto Caesar for taking part with Pompey, and Caesar dis- 
charged him. But Ligarius thanked not Caesar so much for his discharge, 
as he was offended with him for that he was brought in danger by his 
tyrannical power: and therefore in his heart he was always his mortal 
enemy, and was besides very familiar with Brutus, who went to see him being 
sick in his bed, and said unto him : " Ligarius, in what a time art thou sick ? " 
Ligarius, rising up in his bed, and taking him by the right hand, said unto 
him : " Brutus, if thou hast any great enterprise in hand, worthy of thyself, 
I am whole."— PLUTARCH. 



SCENE II. JULIUS OESAR. 91 

Scene II. — A Rooi?i in Cesar's Palace. 

Thunder and Lightning. Enter Cesar, in his night-gown. 

Cces. Nor Heaven nor Earth have been at peace to-night : 
Thrice hath Calpurnia in her sleep cried out, 
Help, ho! they murder Ccesarf — Who's within ? 

Enter a Servant. 
Sen'>. My lord? 

Cces. Go bid the priests do present sacrifice, 
And bring me their opinions of success. 1 

Sen'. I will, my lord. [Exit. 

Enter Calpurnia. 

Cat. What mean you, Caesar? think you to walk forth? 
You shall not stir out of your house to-day. 

Cces. Caesar shall forth : the things that threaten me 
Ne'er look but on my back ; when they shall see 
The face of Caesar, they are vanished. 

Cat. Caesar, I never stood on ceremonies, 2 
Yet now they fright me. There is one within, 
Besides the things that we have heard and seen, 
Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch. 
A lioness hath whelped in the streets ; 
And graves have yawn'd, and yielded up their dead ; 
Fierce fiery warriors fought upon the clouds, 
In ranks and squadrons and right form of war, 
Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol ; 

1 Their opinions of what is to follow. The Poet often uses success in this 
sense : so that we have "good success " and " /// success." 

2 Ceremonies is here put for the ceremonial or sacerdotal interpretation 
of prodigies and omens. 



92 JULIUS C^SAR. ACT II. 

The noise of battle hurtled 3 in the air; 
Horses did neigh, and dying men did groan ; 
And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets. 
O Caesar, these things are beyond all use, 
And I do fear them ! 

Cces. What can be avoided 

Whose end is purposed by the mighty gods ? 
Yet Caesar shall go forth ; for these predictions 
Are to the world in general as to Caesar. 

Cat. When beggars die, there are no comets seen ; 
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes. 

Cces. Cowards die many times before their deaths ; 
The valiant never taste of death but once. 4 
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, 
It seems to me most strange that men should fear ; 
Seeing that death, a necessary end, 
Will come when it will come. — 

Re-enter the Servant. 

What say the augurers ? 

Serv. They would not have you to stir forth to-day. 
Plucking the entrails of an offering forth, 
They could not find a heart within the beast. 

Cces. The gods do this in shame of cowardice : 

3 To hurtle is to clash, or move with violence and noise. 

4 Plutarch relates that, a short time before Caesar fell, some of his friends 
urged him to have a guard about him, and he replied that it was better to 
die at once than live in the continual fear of death. He is also said to 
have given as his reason for refusing a guard, that he thought Rome had 
more need of him than he of Rome ; which was indeed true. And it is 
further stated that, on the eve of the fatal day, Caesar being at the house of 
Lepidus with some friends, and the question being raised, "What kind 
of death is best? " he cut short the discussion by saying, " That which is 
least expected." 



scene II. JULIUS CAESAR. 93 

Caesar should be a beast without a heart, 
If he should stay at home to-day for fear. 
No, Caesar shall not : danger knows full well 
That Caesar is more dangerous than he : 
We are two lions litter'd in one day, 
And I the elder and more terrible ; 
And Caesar shall go forth. 

Cal. Alas, my lord, 

Your wisdom is consumed in confidence ! 
Do not go forth to-day : call it my fear 
That keeps you in the house, and not your own. 
We'll send Mark Antony to the Senate-house : 
And he shall say you are not well to-day : 
Let me, upon my knee, prevail in this. 

Cces. Mark Antony shall say I am not well ; 
And, for thy humour, I will stay at home. 5 

Enter Decius. 

Here's Decius Brutus, he shall tell them so. 

5 Then going to bed the same night, as his manner was, and lying with 
his wife Calpurnia, all the windows and doors of his chamber flying open, 
the noise awoke him, and made him afraid when he saw such light ; but 
more, when he heard his wife Calpurnia, being fast asleep, weep and sigh, 
and put forth many fumbling lamentable speeches : for she dreamed that 
Caesar was slain, and that she had him in her arms. Caesar rising in the 
morning, she prayed him, if it were possible, not to go out of the doors that 
day, but to adjourn the session of the Senate until another day. And if 
that he made no reckoning of her dream, yet that he would search further 
of the soothsayers by their sacrifices, to know what should happen him that 
day. Thereby it seemed that Caesar did likewise fear or suspect somewhat, 
because his wife Calpurnia until that time was never given to any fear and 
superstition ; and that then he saw her so troubled in mind with this dream 
she had. But much more afterwards, when the soothsayers having sacri- 
ficed many beasts one after another, told him that none did like them : then 
he determined to send Antonius to adjourn the session of the Senate. — 
Plutarch. 



94 JULIUS CiESAR. act II. 

Dec. Caesar, all hail ! Good morrow, worthy Caesar : 
I come to fetch you to the Senate-house. 

Cces. And you are come in very happy time 
To bear my greeting to the Senators, 
And tell them that I will not come to-day. 
Cannot, is false ; and that I dare not, falser : 
I will not come to-day. Tell them so, Decius. 

Cal. Say he is sick. 

Cess. Shall Csesar send a lie ? 

Have I in conquest stretch'd mine arm so far, 
To be afeard to tell gray-beards the truth ? — 
Decius, go tell them Csesar will not come. 

Dec. Most mighty Csesar, let me know some cause, 
Lest I be laugh'd at when I tell them so. 

Cccs. The cause is in my will ; I will not come : 
That is enough to satisfy the Senate. 
But, for your private satisfaction, 
Because I love you, I will let you know : 
Calpurnia here, my wife, stays me at home : 
She dreamt to-night she saw my statua, 6 
Which, like a fountain with an hundred spouts, 
Did run pure blood ; and many lusty Romans 
Came smiling, and did bathe their hands in it : 
And these doth she apply for warnings and portents 
Of evils imminent ; and on her knee 
Hath begg'd that I will stay at home to-day. 

Dec. This dream is all amiss interpreted : 
It was a vision fair and fortunate. 

6 In Shakespeare's time statue was pronounced indifferently as a word 
of two syllables or three. Bacon uses it repeatedly as a trisyllable, and spells 
it statua, as in his Advancement of Learning : "It is not possible to have 
the true pictures or statuas of Cyrus, Alexander, Caesar, no, nor of the kings 
or great personages of much later years." 



scene II. JULIUS OESAR. 95 

Your statue spouting blood in many pipes, 
In which so many smiling Romans bathed, 
Signifies that from you great Rome shall suck 
Reviving blood ; and that great men shall press 
For tinctures, stains, relics, and cognizance. 7 
This by Calpurnia's dream is signified. 

Cces. And this way have you well expounded it. 

Dec. I have, when you have heard what I can say ; 
And know it now : The Senate have concluded 
To give this day a crown to mighty Caesar. 8 
If you shall send them word you will not come, 
Their minds may change. Besides, it were a mock 
Apt to be render'd, 9 for some one to say, 
Break tip the Senate till another time, 
Wlien Ccesar's wife shall meet with better dreams. 
If Caesar hide himself, shall they not whisper, 
Lo, Ccesar is afraid ? 

" Cognizance is here used in a heraldic sense, as meaning any badge or 
token to show whose friends or servants the owners or wearers were. In 
ancient times, when martyrs or other distinguished men were executed, 
their friends often pressed to stain handkerchiefs with their blood, or to get 
some other relic, which they might keep, either as precious memorials of 
them, or as having a kind of sacramental virtue. 

8 The Roman people were specially yearning to avenge the slaughter of 
Marcus Crassus and his army by the Parthians ; and Ccesar was at this 
time preparing an expedition against them. But a Sibylline oracle was 
alleged, that Parthia could only be conquered by a king ; and it was pro- 
posed to invest Ca;sar with the royal title and authority over the foreign 
subjects of the State. It is agreed on all hands that, if his enemies did not 
originate this proposal, they at least craftily urged it on, in order to make 
him odious, and exasperate the people against him. To the same end, 
they had for some time been plying the arts of extreme sycophancy, heaping 
upon him all possible honours, human and divine, hoping thereby to kindle 
such a fire of envy as would consume him. 

9 It were apt, or likely, to be construed or ?-epresented as a piece of mock- 
ery. So the Poet repeatedly uses the verb to render. 



96 JULIUS CESAR. ACT II. 

Pardon me, Caesar ; for my dear dear love 
To your proceeding bids me tell you this ; 
And reason to my love is liable. 10 

Ccbs. How foolish do your fears seem now, Calpurnia ! 
I am ashamed I did yield to them. 
Give me my robe, for I will go. 11 

Enter Publius, Brutus, Ligarius, Metellus, Casca, Tre- 
bonius, and Cinna. 

And look where Publius 12 is come to fetch me. 

Pub. Good morrow, Caesar. 

Cos. Welcome, Publius. — 

What, Brutus, are you stirr'd so early too ? — 
Good morrow, Casca. — Caius Ligarius, 

10 The thought here is, that love stands as principal, reason as second or 
subordinate. " The deference which reason holds due from me to you is in 
this instance subject and amenable to the calls of personal affection." 

11 In the mean time Decius Brutus, surnamed Albinus, in whom Caesar 
put such confidence, that in his last will and testament he had appointed him 
to be his next heir, and yet was of the conspiracy with Cassius and Brutus ; 
he, fearing that, if Caesar did adjourn the session that day, the conspiracy 
would be betrayed, laughed at the soothsayers, and reproved Caesar, saying 
that " he gave the Senate occasion to mislike with him, and they might think 
he mocked them, considering that by his commandment they were assem- 
bled, and that they were ready willingly to grant him all things, and to pro- 
claim him king of all his provinces of the Empire of Rome out of Italy, and 
that he should wear his diadem in all other places both by sea and land. 
And furthermore, that if any man should tell them from him they should 
depart for that present time, and return again when Calpurnia should have 
better dreams, what would his enemies and ill-willers say, and how could 
they like of his friends' words ? And who could persuade them otherwise, 
but that they should think his dominion a slavery unto them and tyrannical 
in himself? And yet if it be so," said he, " that you utterly mislike of this 
day, it is better that you go yourself in person, and, saluting the Senate, to 
dismiss them till another time." Therewithal he took Caesar by the hand, 
and brought him out of his house. — Plutarch. 

12 This was Publius Silicius ; not one of the conspirators. 



scene II. JULIUS CAESAR. 97 

Caesar was ne'er so much your enemy 

As that same ague which hath made you lean. 13 — 

What is't o'clock? 

Bru. Caesar, 'tis strucken eight. 

Cces. I thank you for your pains and courtesy. 

Enter Antony. 

See ! Antony, that revels long o'nights, 

Is notwithstanding up. — Good morrow, Antony. 

Ant. So to most noble Caesar. 

C<zs. Bid them prepare within : 

I am to blame to be thus waited for. — 
Now, Cinna ; — now, Metellus ; — what, Trebonius ! 
I have an hour's talk in store for you : 
Remember that you call on me to-day ; 
Be near me, that I may remember you. 

Treb. Caesar, I will ; — \_Aside.~] and so near will I be, 
That your best friends shall wish I had been further. 

Cczs. Good friends, go in, and taste some wine with me ; 
And we, like friends, will straightway go together. 

Bru. \_Aside.~\ That every like is not the same, O Caesar, 
The heart of Brutus yearns to think upon ! 14 [Exeunt. 

13 Here, for the first time, we have Caesar speaking fairly in character ; 
for he was probably the most finished gentleman of his time, one of the 
sweetest of men, and as full of kindness as of wisdom and courage. Meri- 
vale aptly styles him " Caesar the politic and the merciful." 

14 The winning and honest suavity of Caesar here starts a pang of remorse 
in Brutus. Drinking wine together was regarded as a sacred pledge of 
truth and honour. Brutus knows that Caesar is doing it in good faith ; and 
it hurts him to think that the others seem to be doing the like, and yet are 
doing a very different thing. To yearn is to grieve, to be pained. Repeat- 
edly used so by the Poet. 



98 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT II. 

Scene III. — A Street near the Capitol. 

Enter Artemidorus, reading a paper. 

Artem. Cczsar, beware of Brutus ; take heed of Cassius ; 
come not near Casca ; have an eye to Cinna ; trust not 
Trebonius ; mark well Metellus Cimber ; Decius Brutus 
loves thee not ; thou hast wrong 'd Caius Ligarius. There 
is but one mind in all these men, and it is bent against 
Cczsar. If thou be 'st not immortal, look about you : security 
gives way to conspiracy} The mighty gods defend thee! 

Thy lover, Artemidorus. 

Here will I stand till Caesar pass along, 

And as a suitor will I give him this. 

My heart laments that virtue cannot live 

Out of the teeth of emulation. 2 — 

If thou read this, O Csesar, thou mayst live ; 

If not, the Fates with traitors do contrive. [Exit. 

Scene IV. — Another part of the same Street, before the 
House of Brutus. 

Enter Portia and Lucius. 

For. I pr'ythee, boy, run to the Senate-house : 
Stay not to answer me, but get thee gone. 
Why dost thou stay? 

Luc. To know my errand, madam. 

1 Negligence or over-confidence makes or opens a way for conspiracy. The 
use of security and secure in this sense is very frequent. See Hamlet, page 
83, note 8 ; also Alacbeth, page 119, note 4. 

2 Emulation is factious and envious rivalry. So in Troilus and Cressida, 
i. 3 : " An envious fever of pale and bloodless emulation." 



SCENE IV. JULIUS CAESAR. 99 

Por. I would have had thee there, and here again, 
Ere I can tell thee what thou shouldst do there. — 
\_Aside.~\ O constancy, be strong upon my side ! 
Set a huge mountain 'tween my heart and tongue ! 
I have a man's mind, but a woman's might. 
How hard it is for women to keep counsel ! — 
Art thou here yet? 

Luc. Madam, what should I do? 

Run to the Capitol, and nothing else ? 
And so return to you, and nothing else ? 

Por. Yes ; bring me word, boy, if thy lord look well, 
For he went sickly forth : and take good note 
What Caesar doth, what suitors press to him. 
Hark, boy ! what noise is that? 

Luc. I hear none, madam. 

Por. Pr'ythee, listen well : 

I heard a bustling rumour, 3 like a fray, 
And the wind brings it from the Capitol. 

Luc. Sooth, 4 madam, I hear nothing. 

Enter Artemidorus. 

Por. Come hither, fellow : which way hast thou been? 

Artem. At mine own house, good lady. 

Por. What is't o'clock? 

Artem. About the ninth hour, lady. 

Por. Is Caesar yet gone to the Capitol? 

3 A loud noise or murmur, as of stir and tumult, is one of the old mean- 
ings of rumour. — Since the interview of Brutus and Portia, he has un- 
bosomed all his secrets to her ; and now she is in such a fever of anxiety, 
that she mistakes her own fancies for facts. 

4 Sooth for in sooth ; that is, in truth, or truly. A soothsayer is, properly, 
a truth-speaker. So the Poet often uses sooth. 



IOO JULIUS CrESAR. ACT II. 

Artem. Madam, not yet : I go to take my stand, 
To see him pass on to the Capitol. 

Por. Thou hast some suit to Caesar, hast thou not ? 

Artem. That I have, lady : if it will please Caesar 
To be so good to Caesar as to hear me, 
I shall beseech him to befriend himself. 

Por. Why, know'st thou any harm's intended towards 
him ? 

Artem. None that I know will be, much that I fear may 
chance. 
Good morrow to you. — Here the street is narrow : 
The throng that follows Caesar at the heels, 
Of Senators, of Praetors, common suitors, 
Will crowd a feeble man almost to death : 
I'll get me to a place more void, and there 
Speak to great Caesar as he comes along. [Exit. 

Por. I must go in. — [Aside."] Ah me, how weak a thing 
The heart of woman is ! — O Brutus, 
The Heavens speed thee in thine enterprise ! — 
Sure, the boy heard me. — Brutus hath a suit 
That Caesar will not grant. 5 — O, I grow faint. — 
Run, Lucius, and commend me to my lord ; 
Say I am merry : come to me again, 
And bring me word what he doth say to thee. [Exeunt. 

5 These words Portia speaks aloud to Lucius, as a blind to cover the true 
cause of her uncontrollable flutter of spirits. 



SCENE I. JULIUS CAESAR. 10 1 



ACT III. 

Scene I. — Rome. Before the Capitol; the Senate sitting. 

A crowd of People in the street leading to the Capitol; among 
them Artemidorus, and the Soothsayer. Flourish. Enter 
Caesar, Brutus, Cassius, Casca, Decius, Metellus, Tre- 
bonius, Cinna, Antony, Lepidus, Popilius, Publius, and 
Others. 

Cces. The Ides of March are come. 

Sooth. Ay, Caesar ; but not gone. 1 

Artetn. Hail, Caesar ! read this schedule. 

Dec. Trebonius doth desire you to o'er-read, 
At your best leisure, this his humble suit. 

Artem. O Caesar, read mine first ; for mine's a suit 
That touches Caesar nearer : read it, great Caesar. 

Cces. What touches us ourself shall be last served. 

Artem. Delay not, Caesar ; read it instantly. 2 

1 There was a certain soothsayer, that had given Caesar warning long 
time afore, to take heed of the day of the Ides of March, which is the 15th 
of the month ; for on that day he should be in great danger. That day being 
come, Caesar, going into the Senate-house, and speaking merrily unto the 
soothsayer, told him " the Ides of March be come." — " So they be," softly 
answered the soothsayer, " but yet are they not past." — PLUTARCH. 

2 One Artemidorus also, born in the isle of Cnidos, a doctor of rhetoric 
in the Greek tongue, who by means of his profession was very familiar with 
certain of Brutus's confederates, and therefore knew the most part of all 
their practices against Caesar, came and brought him a little bill, written 
with his own hand, of all that he meant to tell him. He, marking how 
Caesar received all the supplications that were offered him, and that he gave 
them straight to his men that were about him, pressed nearer to him, and 
said : " Caesar, read this memorial to yourself, and that quickly, for they be 



102 JULIUS CiESAR, ACT in. 

Cces. What, is the fellow mad? 
Pub. Sirrah, give place. 

Cces. What, urge you your petitions in the street ? 
Come to the Capitol. 3 

Caesar enters the Capitol, the rest following. All the Senators 

rise. 

Pop. I wish your enterprise to-day may thrive. 

Cass. What enterprise, Popilius? 

Pop. Fare you well. 

Bru. What said Popilius Lena? 

Cass. He wish'd to-day our enterprise might thrive. 
I fear our purpose is discovered. 

Bru. Look, how he makes to Caesar : mark him. 

Cass. Casca, be sudden, for we fear prevention. — 
Brutus, what shall be done ? If this be known, 
Cassius or Caesar never shall turn back, 
For I will slay myself. 4 

Bru. Cassius, be constant : 

Popilius Lena speaks not of our purpose ; 
For, look, he smiles, and Caesar doth not change. 5 

matters of great weight, and touch you nearly. Caesar took it of him, but 
could never read it, though he many times attempted it, for the number of 
people that did salute him, but holding it still in his hand, keeping it to him- 
self, went on withal to the Senate-house. — PLUTARCH. 

3 The murder of Caesar did not, in fact, take place in the Capitol, as is 
here represented, but in a hall or Curia adjoining Pompey's theatre, where 
a statue of Pompey had been erected. The Senate had various places of 
meeting ; generally in the Capitol, occasionally in some one of the Temples, 
at other times in one of the Curiae, of which there were several in and about 
the city. . 

4 The meaning evidently is, "either Cassius or Caesar shall never return 
alive ; for, if I do not kill him, I will slay myself." 

5 A senator called Popilius Lena after he had saluted Brutus and Cas- 



scene i. JULIUS (LESAR. 103 

Cass, Trebonius knows his time ; for, look you, Brutus, 
He draws Mark Antony out of the way. 

[Exeunt Antony and Trebonius. Cesar and the 

Senators take their seats. 

Dec. Where is Metellus Cimber? Let him go, 
And presently prefer his suit to Caesar. 

Bru. He is address'd : 6 press near and second him. 

Cin. Casca, you are the first that rears your hand. 

Casca. Are we all ready ? 

Cces. What is now amiss 

That Caesar and his Senate must redress ? 

Met. Most high, most mighty, and most puissant Caesar, 
Metellus Cimber throws before thy seat 
An humble heart, — [Kneeling. 

sius more friendly than he was wont to do, he rounded softly in their ears, 
and told them, " I pray the gods you may go through with that you have 
taken in hand ; but, withal, dispatch, I read you, for your enterprise is be- 
wrayed." When he had said, he presently departed from them, and left 
them both afraid that their conspiracy would out. — When Caesar came out 
of the litter, Popilius Lena went unto him, and kept him a long time with 
talk. Caesar gave good ear unto him ; wherefore the conspirators, not hear- 
ing what he said, but conjecturing that his talk was none other but the very 
discovery of their conspiracy, they were afraid every man of them ; and one 
looking in another's face, it was easy to see that they all were of a mind that 
it was no tarrying for them till they were apprehended, but rather that they 
should kill themselves with their own hands. And when Cassius and cer- 
tain other clapped their hands on their swords under their gowns, to draw 
them, Brutus marking the countenance and gesture of Lena, and consider- 
ing that he did use himself rather like an humble and earnest suitor than 
like an accuser, he said nothing to his companions, (because there were 
many amongst them that were not of the conspiracy,) but with a pleasant 
countenance encouraged Cassius ; and immediately after, Lena went from 
Caesar, and kissed his hand, which showed plainly that it was for some 
matter concerning himself that he had held him so long in talk. — 
Plutarch. 

6 Address'd is ready, prepared. Often so. See Macbeth, page 75, note 10. 



104 JULIUS CLESAR. ACT III. 

Cces. I must prevent thee, Cimber. 

These couchings 7 and these lowly courtesies 
Might fire the blood of ordinary men, 
And turn pre-ordinance and first decree 
Into the play of children. 8 Be not fond, 
To think 9 that Caesar bears such rebel blood 
That will be thaw'd from the true quality 
With that which melteth fools ; I mean, sweet words, 
Low-crooked curtsies, and base spaniel-fawning. 
Thy brother by decree is banished : 
If thou dost bend, and pray, and fawn for him, 
I spurn thee like a cur out of my way. 

Met. Caesar, thou dost me wrong. 

Cces. Caesar did never wrong but with just cause, 10 - 
Nor without cause will he be satisfied. 

Met. Is there no voice more worthy than my own, 
To sound more sweetly in great Caesar's ear 
For the repealing 11 of my banish'd brother? 

" Among the proper senses of to couch, Richardson gives " to lower, to 
stoop, to bend down " ; and he says that " to couch and to lower have simi- 
lar applications, and probably the same origin." 

8 " Pre-ordinance and first decree " is, I take it, the ruling or enactment 
of the highest authority in the State. " The play of children " here referred 
to is, as soon as they have done a thing, to turn round and undo it, or to 
build a house of blocks or cobs for the mere fun of knocking it over. 

9 " Be not so fond as to think," is the language in full. The Poet often 
omits the adverbs in such cases. Fond, here, is foolish; which was its ordi- 
nary sense in Shakespeare's time. 

10 Metellus and Caesar here use wrong in different senses. But to hurt, 
to offend,\o cause pain were among its legitimate meanings in Shakespeare's 
time. So he has it afterwards in this play: " It shall advantage more than 
do us wrong." And so in several other places ; as in Othello, ii. 3 : " I per- 
suade myself, to speak the truth shall nothing wrong him." To wring and 
to wrest are from the same root as wrong. See Critical Notes. 

11 To repeal from banishment is, in old English, to recall by repealing 
the sentence. See Richard the Second, page 84, note 8. 



scene I. JULIUS CAESAR. 1 05 

Bru. I kiss thy hand, but not in flattery, Caesar ; 
Desiring thee that Publius Cimber may 
Have an immediate freedom of repeal. 

Cces. What, Brutus ! 

Cass. Pardon, Caesar ; Caesar, pardon : 

As low as to thy foot doth Cassius fall, 
To beg enfranchisement for Publius Cimber. 

Cces. I could be well moved, if I were as you ; 
If I could pray to move, prayers would move me : 12 
But I am constant as the northern star, 
Of whose true-fix'd and resting quality 
There is no fellow in the firmament. 
The skies are painted with unnumber'd sparks, 
They are all fire, and every one doth shine ; 
But there's but one in all doth hold his place : 
So in the world ; 'tis furnish'd well with men, 
And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive ; 13 
Yet in the number I do know but one 
That unassailable holds on his rank, 
Unshaked of motion : 14 and that I am he, 
Let me a little show it even in this, — 
That I was constant Cimber should be banish'd, 
And constant do remain to keep him so. 15 

12 " If I could seek to move others by prayers, then I were capable of 
being myself moved by the prayers of others." 

13 Apprehensive is intelligent, capable of apprehending. 

14 " Unshaked of motion " is simply unmoved, or not subject to motion. 
Undisturbed by the motion of others. As all readers of the Bible know, of 
was continually used, with passive verbs, to denote the agent. 

15 All through this scene, Caesar is made to speak quite out of character, 
and in a strain of hateful arrogance, in order, apparently, to soften the 
enormity of his murder, and to grind the daggers of the assassins to a 
sharper point. Perhaps, also, it is a part of the irony which so marks this 
play, to put the haughtiest words in Caesar's mouth just before his fall. — It 



106 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT in. 

Cin. O Caesar, — 

Cces. Hence ! wilt thou lift up Olympus ? 

Dec. Great Csesar, — 

Cces. Doth not Brutus bootless kneel ? 

Casca. Speak, hands, for me ! 

[Casca stabs Cesar in the neck. Caesar catches hold 
of his arm. He is then stabbed by several other 
Conspirators, and at last by Marcus Brutus. 
Cces. Et tu, Brute ? 16 — Then fall, Csesar ! 17 

[Dies. The Senators and People retire in confusion. 

may be well to add, that the carrying of deadly weapons was unlawful in 
Rome ; but every educated citizen carried a stylus in a sheath ; and on this 
occasion the assassins had daggers hidden in their stylus-cases. 

16 There is no classical authority for putting these words into the mouth 
of Caesar ; and the English equivalent, Thou too, Brutus, sounds so much 
better, that it seems a pity the Poet did not write so. Csesar had been as a 
father to Brutus, who was fifteen years his junior ; and the Greek, Kai su 
teknon, " You too, my son," which Dion and Suetonius put into his mouth, 
though probably unauthentic, is good enough to be true. 

17 Trebonius drew Antonius aside, as he came into the house where the 
Senate sat, and held him with a long talk without. When Caesar was come 
into the house, all the Senate rose to honour him at his coming in. So, 
when he was set, the conspirators flocked about him, and amongst them 
they presented one Metellus Cimber, who made humble suit for the calling 
home again of his brother that was banished. They all made as though 
they were intercessors for him, and took Caesar by the hands, and kissed his 
head and breast. Caesar at first simply refused their kindness and entreaties ; 
but afterwards, perceiving they still pressed on him, he violently thrust them 
from him. Then Cimber with both his hands plucked Caesar's gown over 
his shoulders, and Casca, that stood behind him, drew his dagger first and 
struck Caesar upon the shoulder, but gave him no great wound. Caesar, 
feeling himself hurt, took him straight by the hand he held his dagger in, 
and cried out in Latin : " O traitor Casca, what doest thou ? " Casca on the 
other side cried in Greek, and called his brother to help him. So divers 
running on a heap together to fly upon Caesar, he, looking about him to 
have fled, saw Brutus with a sword drawn in his hand ready to strike at 
him : then he let Casca's hand go, and, casting his gown over his face, suf- 
fered every man to strike at him that would. Then the conspirators throng- 



scene i. JULIUS C^SAR. . . 107 

Cin. Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead ! — 
Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets. 

Cass. Some to the common pulpits, and cry out, 
Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement Z 18 

Bru. People, and Senators, be not affrighted ; 
Fly not ; stand still : ambition's debt is paid. 

Casca. Go to the pulpit, Brutus. 

Dec. And Cassius too. 

Bru. Where's Publius? 

Cin. Here, quite confounded with this mutiny. * 

Met. Stand fast together, lest some friend of Caesar's 
Should chance — 

Bru. Talk not of standing. — Publius, good cheer ! 
There is no harm intended to your person, 
Nor to no Roman else : so tell them, Publius. 

Cass. And leave us, Publius ; lest that the people, 
Rushing on us, should do your age some mischief. 

Bru. Do so ; — and let no man abide 19 this deed, 
But we the doers. 

Re-enter Trebonius. 

Cass. Where's Antony? 

Tre. Fled to his house amazed. 

Men, wives, and children stare, cry out, and run, 
As it were doomsday. 

ing one upon another, because every man was desirous to have a cut at 
him, so many swords and daggers lighting upon one body, one of them 
hurt another, and among them Brutus caught a blow on his hand, because 
he would make one in murdering of* him, and all the rest also were every 
man of them bloodied. — Plutarch. 

18 This is somewhat in the style of Caliban, when he gets glorious with 
" celestial liquor," The Tempest, ii. 2 : " Freedom, hey-day ! hey-day, free- 
dom ! freedom, hey-day, freedom ! " 

19 To abide a thing is to stand responsible for it, to bear the consequences. 



108 , JULIUS CAESAR. ACT in. 

Bru. Fates, we will know your pleasures : 

That we shall die, we know ; 'tis but the time, 
And drawing days out, that men stand upon. 20 

Casca. Why, he that cuts off twenty years of life 
Cuts off so many years of fearing death. 

Bru. Grant that, and then is death a benefit : 
So are we Caesar's friends, that have abridged 
His time of fearing death. — Stoop, Romans, stoop, 
And let us bathe our hands in Caesar's blood 
Up to the elbows, and besmear our swords : 
Then walk we forth, even to the market-place, 
And, waving our red weapons o'er our heads, 
Let's all cry, Peace, Freedoin, and Liberty ! 

Cass. Stoop, then, and wash. How many ages hence 
Shall this our lofty scene be acted o'er 
In States unborn and accents yet unknown ! 

Bru. How many times shall Caesar bleed in sport, 
That now on Pompey's basis lies along 21 
No worthier than the dust ! 

Cass. So oft as that shall be, 

So often shall the knot of us be call'd 
The men that gave their country liberty. 22 

Dec. What, shall we forth ? 

20 » w e a n know that we are to die some time ; and how long we can 
draw out our life, is the only thing we concern ourselves about." 

21 So it was in fact : Caesar fell at the pedestal of Pompey's statue ; the 
statue itself dripping with the blood that spurted from him. 

22 These three speeches, vain-gloriously anticipating the stage celebrity 
of the deed, are very strange ; and, unless there be a shrewd irony lurking 
in them, I am at a loss to understand the purpose of them. Their effect on 
my mind has long been to give a very ambitious air to the work of these 
professional patriots, and to cast a highly theatrical colour on their alleged 
virtue ; as if they had sought to immortalize themselves by " striking the 
foremost man of all this world." 



SCENE I. JULIUS CAESAR. 109 

Cass. Ay, every man away : 

Brutus shall lead ; and we will grace his heels 
With the most boldest 23 and best hearts of Rome. 

I$i'u. Soft ! who comes here ? 

Enter a Servant. 

A friend of Antony's. 

Sent. Thus, Brutus, did my master bid me kneel ; 
Thus did Mark Antony bid me fall down ; 
And, being prostrate, thus he bade me say : 
Brutus is noble, wise, valiant, and honest ; 
Caesar was mighty, bold, royal, and loving : 
Say I love Brutus, and I honour him ; 
Say I fear'd Caesar, honour'd him, and loved him. 
If Brutus will vouchsafe that Antony 
May safely come to him, and be resolved 24 
How Caesar hath deserved to lie in death, 
Mark Antony shall not love Caesar dead 
So well as Brutus living ; but will follow 
The fortunes and affairs of noble Brutus 
Thorough 25 the hazards of this untrod state 
With all true faith. So says my master Antony. 

Bru. Thy master is a wise and valiant Roman ; 
I never thought him worse. 
Tell him, so please him come unto this place, 
He shall be satisfied ; and, by my honour, 
Depart untouch'd. 

23 This doubling of superlatives, as also of comparatives, and of nega- 
tives, was very common in the Poet's time. So, in The Acts.xxvi.s, St. Paul 
says, " after the most strcutest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee." 

24 Informed, assured, satisfied are among the old senses of resolved. 

25 Shakespeare uses through or thorough indifferently, as suits his verse. 
The two are in fact but different forms of the same word. 



IIO JULIUS C^SAR. ACT III. 

Serv. I'll fetch him presently. [Exit. 

Bru. I know that we shall have him well to friend. 

Cass. I wish we may : but yet have I a mind 
That fears him much ; and my misgiving still 
Falls shrewdly to the purpose. 

Bru. But here comes Antony. — 

Re-enter Antony. 

Welcome, Mark Antony. 
Ant. O mighty Caesar ! dost thou lie so low ? 
Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils, 
Shrunk to this little measure ? Fare thee well. — 
I know not, gentlemen, what you intend, 
Who else. must be let blood, who else is rank : 26 
If I myself, there is no hour so fit 
As Caesar's death-hour ; nor no instrument 
Of half that worth as those your swords, made rich 
With the most noble blood of all this world. 
I do beseech ye, if you bear me hard, 
Now, whilst your purpled hands do reek and smoke, 
Fulfil your pleasure. Live a thousand years, 27 
I shall not find myself so apt to die : 
No place will please me so, no mean of death, 
As here by Caesar, and by you 28 cut off, 
The choice and master spirits of this age. 

26 " Must be let blood " is a mere euphemism for " must be put to death." 
— " Who else is rank " means " who else has too much blood in him." And 
the idea is of one who has overtopped his equals, and grown too high for the 
public safety. So in the speech of Oliver in As You Like It, i. I, when in- 
censed at the high bearing of Orlando : " Is it even so ? begin you to grow 
upon me ? I will physic your rankness." 

27 That is, " if\ live," or " should I live, a thousand years." 

28 By is here used in two senses ; first, in the sense of near, or as a sign 
of place ; second, to denote agency, as usual. 



scene i. JULIUS CAESAR. Ill 

Bru. O Antony, beg not your death of us. 
Though now we must appear bloody and cruel, 
As, by our hands and this our present act, 
You see we do ; yet see you but our hands, 
And this the bleeding business they have done : 
Our hearts you see not ; they are pitiful ; 
And pity to the general wrong of Rome — 
As fire drives out fire, 29 so pity pity — 
Hath done this deed on Caesar. For your part, 
To you our swords have leaden points, Mark Antony : 
Our arms in strength of amity, and our hearts 
Of brothers' temper, do receive you in 
With all kind love, good thoughts, and reverence. 

Cass. Your voice shall be as strong as any man's 
In the disposing of new dignities. 30 

Bru. Only be patient till we have appeased 
The multitude, beside themselves with fear, 31 



29 As before noted, Shakespeare uses fire as one or two syllables indif- 
ferently, to suit his metre. Here the first fire is two syllables, the second one. 
— The allusion is to the old way of salving a burn by holding it up to the 
fire. So in Romeo and yuliet, i. 2 : " Tut, man, one fire burns out another's 
burning ; one pain is lessen'd by another's anguish." 

30 This little speech is snugly characteristic. Brutus has been talking 
about " our hearts," and " kind love, good thoughts, and reverence." To 
Cassius, all that is mere rose-water humbug, and he knows it is so to Antony 
too. He therefore hastens to put in such motives as he knows will have 
weight with Antony, as they also have with himself. And it is somewhat re- 
markable that several of these patriots, especially Cassius, the two Brutuses,* 
and Trebonius, afterwards accepted the governorship of fat provinces for 
which they had been prospectively named by Caesar ; they being of course 
too patriotic to resist the eloquence of such lucrative appointments. 

31 When Caesar was slain, the Senate — though Brutus stood in the 
middest amongst them, as though he would have said something touching 
this fact — presently ran out of the house, and, flying, filled all the city with 
marvellous fear and tumult. — Plutarch. 



112 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT III. 

And then we will deliver you the cause, 

Why I, that did love Caesar when I struck him, 

Have thus proceeded. 

Ant. I doubt not of your wisdom. 

Let each man render me his bloody hand : 
First, Marcus Brutus, will I shake with you ; — 
Next, Caius Cassius, do I take your hand ; — • 
Now, Decius Brutus, yours ; — now yours, Metellus ; — 
Yours, Cinna ; — and, my valiant Casca, yours ; — 
Though last, not least in love, yours, good Trebonius. 
Gentlemen all, — alas, what shall I say ? 
My credit now stands on such slippery ground, 
That one of two bad ways you must conceit me, 32 
Either a coward or a flatterer. — 
That I did love thee, Caesar, O, 'tis true : 
If, then, thy spirit look upon us now, 
Shall it not grieve thee dearer 33 than thy death, 
To see thy Antony making his peace, 
Shaking the bloody fingers of thy foes, — 
Most noble ! — in the presence of thy corse ? 
Had I as many eyes as thou hast wounds, 
Weeping as fast as they stream forth thy blood, 
It would become me better than to close 
In terms of friendship with thine enemies. 
Pardon me, Julius ! Here wast thou bay'd, 34 brave hart ; 
Here didst thou fall ; and here thy hunters stand, 
Sign'd in thy spoil, and crimson'd in thy death. — 

32 Must conceive of me, or construe me. See page 71, note 40. 

33 "Formerly dear might signify whatever moved any strong feeling, 
whether of pleasure or pain. The Poet has many instances of it used as 
here. See Hamlet, page 64, note 39. 

34 Bay'd is brought to bay, and so barked at and worried, as a deer by 
hounds. Shakespeare has the word often in that sense. 



SCENE I. JULIUS CLESAR. 113 

O world, thou wast the forest to this hart ; 
And this indeed, O world, the heart of thee. — 
How like a deer, strucken by many princes, 
Dost thou here lie ! 

Cass. Mark Antony, — 

Ant. Pardon me, Caius Cassius : 

The enemies of Caesar shall say this ; 
Then, in a friend, it is cold modesty. 35 

Cass. I blame you not for praising Caesar so ; 
But what compact mean you to have with us? 
Will you be prick'd 36 in number of our friends ; 
Or shall we on, and not depend on you ? 

Ant. Therefore 37 I took your hands ; but was indeed 
Sway'd from the point, by looking down on Caesar. 
Friends am I with you all, and love you all, 
Upon this hope, that you shall give me reasons 
Why and wherein Caesar was dangerous. 

Bru. Or else were this a savage spectacle : 
Our reasons are so full of good regard 
That, were you, Antony, the son of Caesar, 
You should be satisfied. 

Ant. That's all I seek : 

And am moreover suitor that I may 
Produce his body to the -market-place ; 38 

35 Modesty in its original sense of moderation. Frequent. 

36 Prick'd is marked. The image is of a list of names written out, and 
some of them distinguished by having holes pricked in the paper against 
them. 

37 Therefore is not the illative conjunction here ; but means to that end, 
or for that purpose. 

38 Produce in the Latin sense of produco ; implying motion to a place. — 
Here, and all through this play, market-place is the Forum, where several 
rostra were provided for addressing the people. Shakespeare calls these 
rostra pulpits. 



1 14 JULIUS CAESAR. act in. 

And in the pulpit, as becomes a friend, 
Speak in the order of his funeral. 

Bru. You shall, Mark Antony. 

Cass. Brutus, a word with you. 

[Aside to Bru.] You know not what you do ; do not con- 
sent 
That Antony speak in his funeral : 
Know you how much the people may be moved 
By that which he will utter? 

Bru. [Aside to Cass.] By your pardon : 
I will myself into the pulpit first, 
And show the reason of our Caesar's death : 
What Antony shall speak, I will protest 
He speaks by leave and by permission ; 
And that we are contented Caesar shall 
Have all due rights and lawful ceremonies. 
It shall advantage more than do us wrong. 39 

Cass. [Aside to Bru.] I know not what may fall ; I like 
it not. 

Bru. Mark Antony, here, take you Caesar's body. 
You shall not in your funeral speech blame us, 
But speak all good you can devise of Caesar ; 
And say you do't by our permission ; 
Else shall you not have any hand at all 
About his funeral : and you shall speak 
In the same pulpit whereto I am going, 
After my speech is ended. 

39 For this use of wrong, see page 104, note 10. — Note the high self-appre- 
ciation of Brutus here, in supposing that if he can but have a chance to 
speak to the people, and to air his wisdom before them, all will go right. 
Here, again, he overbears Cassius, who now begins to find the effects of 
having stuffed him with flatteries, and served as a mirror to " turn his hid- 
den worthiness into his eye." 



SCENE I. JULIUS OESAR. 115 

Ant. Be it so ; 

I do desire no more. 

Bru. Prepare the body, then, and follow us. 

[Exeunt all but Antony. 

Ant. O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, 
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers ! 
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man 
That ever lived in the tide of times. 
Woe to the hands that shed this costly blood ! 
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy, — 
Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips, 
To beg the voice and utterance of my- tongue, — 
A curse shall light upon the limbs of men ; 40 
Domestic fury and fierce civil strife 
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy ; 
Blood and destruction shall be so in use, 
And dreadful objects so familiar, 
That mothers shall but smile when they behold 
Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war ; 
All pity choked 41 with custom of fell deeds : 
And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge, 
With Ate 42 by his side come hot from Hell, 
Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice 
Cry Havoc ! and let slip the dogs of war ; 43 

40 By men Antony means not mankind in general ; the scope of the curse 
being limited by the subsequent words, "the parts of Italy," and "in these 
confines." — Limbs is merely the figure of speech called Synecdoche, or the 
putting of a part of a thing for the whole. 

41 " All pity being choked." Ablative absolute again. 

42 Ate is the old goddess of discord and mischief. So, in Much Ado, ii. 
1, Benedick describes Beatrice as " the infernal Ate in good apparel." 

43 Havoc was anciently the word of signal for giving no quarter in a bat- 
tle. It was a high crime for any one to give the signal without authority 
from the general-in-chief; hence the peculiar force of monarch! s voice. — To 



Il6 JULIUS CiESAR. ACT III. 

That this foul deed shall smell above the earth 
With carrion men, groaning for burial. — 

Enter a Servant. 

You serve Octavius Caesar, do you not? 

Serv. I do, Mark Antony. 

Ant. Caesar did write for him to come to Rome. 

Serv. He did receive his letters, and is coming ; 
And bid me say to you by word of mouth, — 
[Seeing the body.~] O Caesar ! — 

Ant. Thy heart is big, get thee apart and weep. 
Passion, I see, is catching ; for mine eyes, 
Seeing those beads of sorrow stand in thine, 
Begin to water. Is thy master coming? 

Serv. He lies to-night within seven leagues of Rome. 

Ant. Post back with speed, and tell him what hath chanced. 
Here is a mourning Rome, a dangerous Rome, 
No Rome of safety 44 for Octavius yet ; 
Hie hence, and tell him so. Yet, stay awhile ; 
Thou shalt not back till I have borne this corse 
Into the market-place : there shall I try, 
In my oration, how the people take 
The cruel issue of these bloody men ; 
According^to the which, thou shalt discourse 
To young Octavius of the state of things. 
Lend me your hand. [Exeunt with Cesar's body. 

let slip a dog was a term of the chase, for releasing the hounds from the 
leash or slip of leather whereby they were held in hand till it was time to let 
them pursue the animal. — The dogs of war are fire, sword, and famine. So 
in King Henry V., first Chorus : " At his heels, leash' d in like hounds, should 
famine, sword, and fire, crouch for employment." 

44 Another play on Rome and room. See page 53, note 38. 




scene II. JULIUS C^SAR. 117 

Scene II. — The Same. The Forum. 
Enter Brutus and Cassius, with a Throng of Citizens. 

Citizens. We will be satisfied ; let us be satisfied. . 

Bru. Then follow me, and give me audience, friends. — 
Cassius, go you into the other street, 
And part the numbers. — 

Those that will hear me speak, let 'em stay here ; 
Those that will follow Cassius, go with him ; 
And public reason shall be rendered 
Of Caesar's death. 

1 Cit. I will hear Brutus speak. 

2 Cit. I will hear Cassius ; and compare their reasons, 
When severally we hear them rendered. 

\_Exit Cassius, with some of the Citizens. Brutus 

goes into the Rostrum. 

3 Cit. The noble Brutus is ascended : silence ! 
Bru. Be patient till the last. 

Romans, countrymen, and lovers ! l hear me for my cause ; 
and be silent, that you may hear : believe me for mine hon- 
our ; and have respect to mine honour, that you may believe : 
censure 2 me in your wisdom ; and awake your senses, that 
you may the better judge. If there be any in this assembly, 
any dear friend of Caesar's, to him I say that Brutus' love to 
Caesar was no less than his. If, then, that friend demand 
why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer, — Not 
that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. Had 

1 Lover and friend were used as synonymous in the Poet's time. Brutus 
afterwards speaks of Caesar as " my best lover'' 

2 Censure is here, as often, judge ; probably used for the jingle it makes 
with senses. 



iiS JULIUS CESAR, act in. 

you rather Caesar were living, and die all slaves, than that 
Caesar were dead, to live all freemen? As Caesar loved me, 
I weep for him ; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it ; as he 
was valiant, I honour him : but, as he was ambitious, I slew 
him. There is tears for his love ; joy for his fortune ; hon- 
our for his valour; and death for his ambition. Who is 
here so base that would be a bondman ? If any, speak ; for 
him have I offended. Who is here so rude that would not 
be a Roman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. 
Who is here so vile that will not love his country? If any, 
speak ; for him have I offended. I pause for a reply. 

Citizens. None, Brutus, none. 

Bru. Then none have I offended. I have done no more 
to Caesar than you shall do to Brutus. The question of his 
death is enroll'd in the Capitol ; 3 his glory not extenuated, 
wherein he was worthy ; nor his offences enforced, 4 for which 
he suffered death. 

Enter Antony and Others, with Caesar's body. 

Here cOmes his body, mourn'd by Mark Antony; who, 
though he had no hand in his death, shall receive the bene- 
fit of his dying, a place in the commonwealth ; as which of 
you shall not? With this I depart, — That, as I slew my 
best lover for the good of Rome, I have the 'same dagger 
for myself, when it shall please my country to need my 
death. 5 

3 The reason of his death is made a matter of solemn official record in 
the books of the Senate, as showing that the act of killing him was done for 
public ends, and not from private hate. 

4 His fame is not lessened or whittled down in those points wherein he was 
worthy. — Enforced is in antithesis to extenuated, meaning that his faults are 
not magnified or forced out of just measure. 

6 A great number of men being assembled together, Brutus made an 



SCENE II. JULIUS C^SAR. 119 

Citizens. Live, Brutus ! live, live ! 

1 Cit. Bring him with triumph home unto his house. 

2 Cit. Give him a statue with his ancestors. 
j Cit. Let him be Caesar. 

4 Cit. Caesar's better parts 

Shall now be crown 'd in Brutus. 

1 Cit. We'll bring him to his house with shouts and clam- 

ours. 
Bru. My countrymen, — 

2 Cit. Peace ! silence ! Brutus speaks. 
1 Cit. Peace, ho ! 

Bru. Good countrymen, let me depart alone, 
And, for my sake, stay here with Antony : 
Do grace to Caesar's corpse, and grace his speech 
Tending to Caesar's glory ; which Mark Antony, 
By our permission, is allow'd to make. 
I do entreat you, not a man depart, 
Save I alone, till Antony have spoke. \Exit. 

1 Cit. Stay, ho ! and let us hear Mark Antony. 

oration unto them, to win the favour of the people, and to justify that they 
had done. All those that were by said they had done well, and cried unto 
them that they should boldly come down from the Capitol; whereupon 
Brutus and his companions came boldly down into the market-place. The 
rest followed in troop, but Brutus went foremost, very honourably com- 
passed in round about with the noblest men of the city, which brought 
him from the Capitol, through the market-place, to the pulpit for orations. 
When the people saw him in the pulpit, although they were a multitude of 
all sorts, and had a good will to make some stir ; yet, being ashamed to do 
it, for the reverence they bare unto Brutus, they kept silence to hear what 
he would say. When Brutus began to speak, they gave him quiet audience : 
howbeit, immediately after, they shewed him that they were not all contented 
with the murder. For when another, called Cinna, would have spoken, and 
began to accuse Caesar, they fell into a great uproar among them, and mar- 
vellously reviled him ; insomuch that the conspirators returned again into 
the Capitol. — Plutarch. 



120 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT in. 

3 Cit. Let him go up into the public chair ; 
We'll hear him. — Noble Antony, go up. 

Ant. For Brutus' sake, I am beholding 6 to you. [Goes up. 

4 Cit. What does he say of Brutus ? 

3 Cit. He says, for Brutus' sake, 
He finds himself beholding to us all. 

4 Cit. 'Twere best he speak no harm of Brutus here. 
i Cit. This Caesar was a tyrant. 

3 Cit. Nay, that's certain : 

We're bless'd, that Rome is rid of him. 

2 Cit. Peace ! let us hear what Antony can say. 

Ant. You gentle Romans, — 

Citizens. Peace, ho ! let us hear him. 

Ant. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me you ears ; 
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. 
The evil that men do lives after them ; 
The good is oft interred with their bones : 7 
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus 
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious : 8 
If it were so, it was a grievous fault ; 
And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it. 
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest, — 
For Brutus is an honourable man ; 
So are they all, all honourable men, — 

6 Shakespeare always uses beholding, the active form, for beholden, the 
passive. Here, as elsewhere, it means obliged, of course. 

7 We have the sama thought in Henry the Eighth, iv. 2 : " Men's evil 
manners live in brass ; their virtues we write in water." 

8 In Shakespeare's time, the ending -tious, and various others like it, when 
occurring at the end of a verse, was often pronounced as two syllables. The 
same was the case with -tion, -sion, and divers others. Many instances of 
the latter have already occurred in this play ; as in the preceding scene : 
" And say you do't by our permission." Also in a former scene : " Out of 
the teeth of emulation." The usage occurs continually in Spenser. 



SCENE II. JULIUS CiESAR. 121 

Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral. 

He was my friend, faithful and just to me : 

But Brutus says he was ambitious ; 

And Brutus is an honourable man. 

He hath brought many captives home to Rome, 

Whose ransoms did the general coffers 9 fill : 

Did this in Csesar seem ambitious ? 

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept : 

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff : 

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious ; 

And Brutus is an honourable man. 

You all did see that on the Lupercal l0 

I thrice presented him a kingly crown, 

Which he did thrice refuse : was this ambition ? 

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious ; 

And, sure, he is an honourable n man. 

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, 

But here I am, to speak what I do know. 

You all did love him once, — not without cause : 

9 Caesar's campaigns in Gaul put vast sums of money into his hands, a 
large part of which he kept to his own use, as indeed he might have kept it 
all ; but he did also, in fact, make over much of it to the public treasury. 
This was a very popular act of course, as it lightened the taxation of the 
city. . 

10 That is, on the day when the feast of Lupercalia was held. 

11 Of course these repetitions of honourable ma?i are intensely ironical ; 
and for that very reason the irony should be studiously kept out of the voice 
in pronouncing them. I have heard speakers and readers utterly spoil the 
effect of the speech by specially emphasizing the irony ; the proper force of 
which, in this case, depends on its being so disguised as to seem perfectly 
unconscious. For, from the extreme delicacy of his position, Antony is 
obliged to proceed with the utmost caution, until he gets, *and sees he 
has got, the audience thoroughly in his power, The consummate adroit- 
ness which he uses to this end is the great charm of this incomparable 
oration. 



122 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT III. 

What cause withholds you, then, to mourn 12 for him ? — 

judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts, 13 
And men have lost their reason ! — Bear with me ; 
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, 

And I must pause till it come back to me. 

i Cit. Methinks there is much reason in his sayings. 

2 Cit. If thou consider rightly of the matter, 
Caesar has had great wrong. 

j Cit. Has he not, masters ? 

1 fear there will a worse come in his place. 

4 Cit. Mark'd ye his words? He would not take the 
crown ; 
Therefore 'tis certain he was not ambitious. 

i Cit. If it be found so, some will dear abide it. 14 

2 Cit. Poor soul ! his eyes are red as fire with weeping. 

j Cit. There's not a nobler man in Rome than Antony. 

4 Cit. Now mark him ; he begins again to speak. 

Ant. But yesterday the word of Caesar might 
Have stood against the world : now lies he there, 
And none so poor to do him reverence. 15 

masters, if I were disposed to stir 

Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage, 

1 should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong, 
Who, you all know, are honourable men : 

I will not do them wrong ; I rather choose 
To wrong the dead, to wrong myself, and you, 

12 To mourn for from mourning. Another gerundial infinitive. 

13 Brutish is by no means tautological here; the antithetic sense of hu- 
man brutes being most artfully implied. 

1 4 Here, again, to abide a thing is to suffer for it, or, as we now say, to 
pay for it. See page 107, note 19. 

15 And there are none so humble but that he is beneath their reverence, 
or too low for their regard. 



scene II. JULIUS CiESAR. 1 23 

Than I will wrong such honourable men. 

But here's a parchment with the seal of Caesar, — 

I found it in his closet, — 'tis his will : 

Let but the commons hear this testament, — 

Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read, — 

And they would go and kiss dead Caesar's wounds, 

And dip their napkins 16 in his sacred blood ; 

Yea, beg a hair of him for memory, 

And, dying, mention it within their wills, 

Bequeathing it as a rich legacy 

Unto their issue. 

4. Cit. We'll hear the will : read it, Mark Antony. 

Citizens. The will, the will ! we will hear Caesar's will. 

Ant. Have patience, gentle friends, I must not read it ; 
It is not meet you know how Caesar loved you. 
You are not wood, you are not stones, but men ; 
And, being men, hearing the will of Caesar, 
It will inflame you, it will make you mad. 
'Tis good you know not that you are his heirs ; 
For, if you should, O, what would come of it ! 

4 Cit. Read the will ! we'll hear it, Antony ; 
You shall read us the will, — Caesar's will ! 

Ant. Will you be patient ? will you stay awhile ? 
I have o'ershot myself to tell you of it : 
I fear I wrong the honourable men 
Whose daggers have stabb'd Caesar ; 17 I do fear it. 

16 Napkin and handkerchief were used indifferently. 

17 Antony now sees that he has the people wholly with him, so that he is 
perfectly safe in stabbing the stabbers with these terrible words. — "I have 
o'ershot myself to tell you of it " is, " I have gone too far, and hurt my own 
cause, in telling you of it." The infinitive used gerundively again. We have 
a like expression in Henry the Eighth, i. 1: "We may outrun, by violent 
swiftness, that which we run at, and lose by over-running? See, also, Mac- 
beth, page 74, note 8. 



124 JULIUS CESAR, act in. 

4. Cit. They were traitors : honourable men ! 

Citizens. The will ! the testament ! 

2 Cit. They were villains, murderers. The will ! read the 
will! 

Ant. You will compel me, then, to read the will ? 
Then make a ring about the corpse of Caesar, 
And let me show you him that made the will. 
Shall I descend ? and will you give me leave ? 

Citizens. Come down. 

2 Cit. Descend. \_He comes down. 

j Cit. You shall have leave. 

4 Cit. A ring ! stand round. 

i Cit. Stand from the hearse, stand from the body. 

2 Cit. Room for Antony ! — most noble Antony ! 

Ant. Nay, press not so upon me ; stand far' 18 off. 

Citizens. Stand back ; room ! bear back. 

Ant. If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. 
You all do know this mantle : I remember 
The first time ever Caesar put it on ; 
'Twas on a Summer's evening, in his tent, 
That day he overcame the Nervii. 19 
Look, in this place ran Cassius' dagger through : 

18 The Poet has far' for further repeatedly. So in The Winter's Tale, iv. 
3 : " Not hold thee of our blood, no, not our kin, far' than Deucalion off." 

19 This is the artfullest and most telling stroke in Antony's speech. The 
Romans prided themselves most of all upon their military virtue and re- 
nown : Caesar was their greatest military hero ; and his victory over the 
NerVii was his most noted military exploit. It occurred during his second 
campaign in Gaul, in the Summer of the year B.C. 57, and is narrated with 
surpassing vividness in the second book of his Bellum Gallicum. Of course 
the matter about the " mantle " is purely fictitious : Caesar had on the civic 
gown, not the military cloak, when killed : and it was, in fact, the mangled 
toga that Antony displayed on this occasion : but the fiction has the effect 
of making the allusion to the victory seem perfectly artless and incidental. 



SCENE IT. JULIUS OESAR. 125 

See what a rent the envious 20 Casca made : 

Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabb'd ; 

And, as he pluck'd his cursed steel away, 

Mark how the blood of Caesar follow'd it, — 

As rushing out of doors, to be resolved 21 

If Brutus so unkindly knock'd, or no ; 

For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel : 22 

Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him ! 

This was the most unkindest cut of all ; 

For, when the noble Caesar saw him stab, 

Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms, 

Quite vanquish'd him : then burst his mighty heart ; 

And, in his mantle muffling up his face, 

Even at the base of Pompey's statua, 

Which all the while ran blood, 23 great Caesar fell. 

O, what a fall was there, my countrymen ! 

Then I, and you, and all of us fell down, 

Whilst bloody treason flourish'd over us. 

O, now you weep ; and, I perceive, you feel 

20 Envious, again, in its old sense of malicious or malignant. 

21 Resolved, again, for informed or assured. See page 109, note 24. 

22 Angel here means, apparently, his counterpart, his good genius, or a 
kind of better and dearer self. See page 76, note 16. 

23 They that had conspired his death compassed him in on every side 
with their swords drawn in their hands, that Caesar turned him nowhere 
but he was stricken at by some, and still had naked swords in his face, and 
was hackled and mangled among them, as a wild beast taken of hunters. 
For it was agreed among them that every man should give him a wound, 
because all their parts should be in this murder. Men report also, that 
Caesar did still defend himself against the rest, running every way with his 
body : but when he saw Brutus with his sword drawn in his hand, then he 
pulled his gowrt over his head, and made no more resistance, and was driven 
either casually or purposedly, by the counsel of the conspirators, against the 
base whereupon Pompey's image stood, which ran all of a gore-blood till he 
was slain. — Plutarch. 



126 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT III. 

The dint 24 of pity : these are gracious drops. 
Kind souls, what, weep you, when you but behold 
Our Caesar's vesture wounded ? Look you here, 
Here is himself, marr'd, as you see, with 25 traitors. 

i Cit. O piteous spectacle ! 

2 Cit. O noble Caesar ! 

j Cit. O woeful day ! 

4 Cit. O traitors, villains ! 

i Cit. O most bloody sight ! 

2 Cit. We will be revenged. 

Citizens. Revenge, — about, — seek, — burn, — fire, — 
kill, — slay, — let not a traitor live ! 

Ant. Stay, countrymen. 

i Cit. Peace there ! hear the noble Antony. 

2 Cit. We'll hear him, we'll follow him, we'll die with him. 

Ant. Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up 
To such a sudden flood of mutiny. 
They that have done this deed are honourable : 
What private griefs 26 they have, alas, I know not, 
That made them do't ; they're wise and honourable, 
And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you. 
I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts : 
I am no orator, as Brutus is ; 
But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man, 
That love my friend ; and that they know full well 
That gave me public leave to speak of him : 
For I have neither wit, 27 nor words, nor worth, 

24 Dint is, properly, blow or stroke ; here put for the impression made by 
the blow. 

25 With, again, as often, instead of by, to denote the relation of agent. 
Marr'd is mangled. See note 23. 

26 Griefs, again, for grievances. See page 69, note 31. 

27 Wit formerly meant understanding, and was so used by all writers. 



scene II. JULIUS C^SAR. 127 

Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech, 
To stir men's blood : I only speak right on ; 
I tell you that which you yourselves do know ; 
Show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths, 
And bid them speak for me : but were I Brutus, 
And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony 
Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue 
In every wound of Caesar, that should move 
The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny. 
Citizens. We'll mutiny. 

1 Cit. We'll burn the house of Brutus. 

3 Cit. Away, then ! come, seek the conspirators. 

Ant. Yet hear me, countrymen ; yet hear me speak. 

Citizens. Peace, ho ! hear Antony ; most noble Antony. 

Ant. Why, friends, you go to do you know not what. 
Wherein hath Caesar thus deserved your loves ? 
Alas, you know not ; I must tell you, then : 
You have forgot the will I told you of. 

Citizens. Most true ; the will ! — let's stay, and hear the 
will. 

Ant. Here is the will, and under Caesar's seal. 
To every Roman citizen he gives, 
To every several man, seventy-five drachmas. 28 

2 Cit. Most noble Caesar ! — we'll revenge his death. 
J Cit. O, royal Caesar ! 

Ant. Hear me with patience. 

Citizens. Peace, ho ! 

Ant. Moreover, he hath left you all his walks, 

28 The drachma was a Greek coin, equal to jd. English. In fact, how- 
ever, Caesar left to each citizen three hundred sesterces, equivalent to about 
$ 14 ; which was practically as good as at least $ 100 in our time : no small 
lift for a poor man. 



128 JULIUS CESAR. 



ACT III. 



His private arbours, and new-planted orchards, 
On this side Tiber : 29 he hath left them you, 
And to your heirs for ever ; common pleasures, 
To walk abroad, and recreate yourselves. 
Here was a Caesar ! when comes such another ? 

i Cit. Never, never. — Come, away, away ! 
We'll burn his body in the holy place, 
And with the brands fire the traitors' houses. 
Take up the body. 

2 Cit. Go, fetch fire. 

3 Cit. Pluck down benches. 

4 Cit. Pluck down forms, 30 windows, any thing. 31 

{Exeunt Citizens, with the body. 

29 As this scene lies in the Forum, near the Capitol, Caesar's gardens are, 
in fact, on the other side Tiber. But the Poet wrote as he read in Plutarch. 
See next note but one. 

30 A form is a long seat, like those in an audience-room or a school. 

31 They came to talk of Caesar's will and testament, and of his funerals 
and tomb. Then Antonius, thinking good his testament should be read 
openly, and also that his body should be honourably buried, and not in 
hugger-mugger, lest the people might thereby take occasion to be worse 
offended if they did otherwise ; Cassius stoutly spoke against it. But Brutus 
went with the motion, and agreed unto it; wherein itseemeth he committed 
a second fault. For the first fault he did, was when he would not consent to 
his fellow-conspirators, that Antonius should be slain ; and therefore he was 
justly accused, that thereby he had saved and strengthened a strong and 
grievous enemy of their conspiracy. The second fault was, when he agreed 
that Caesar's funerals should be as Antonius would have them, the which in- 
deed marred all. For, first of all, when Caesar's testament was openly read 
among them, whereby it appeared that he bequeathed unto every citizen of 
Rome 75 drachmas a man; and that he left his gardens and arbours unto 
the people, which he had on this side of the river Tiber, in the place where 
now the temple of Fortune is built; the people then loved him, and were 
marvellous sorry for him. Afterwards, when Caesar's body was brought 
into the market-place, Antonius making his funeral oration in praise of the 
dead, according to the ancient custom of Rome, and perceiving that his 
words moved the common people to compassion, he framed his eloquence 



scene III. JULIUS CAESAR. 1 29 

Ant. Now let it work. — Mischief, thou art afoot, 
Take thou what course thou wilt ! — 

Enter a Servant. 

How now, fellow ! 

Serv. Sir, Octavius is already come to Rome. 

Ant. Where is he? 

Serv. He and Lepidus are at Caesar's house. 

Ant. And thither will I straight to visit him : 
He comes upon a wish. Fortune is merry, 
And in this mood will give us any thing. 

Serv. I heard 'em say, Brutus and Cassius 
Are rid like madmen through the gates of Rome.-. 

Ant. Belike they had some notice of the people, 
How I had moved them. Bring me to Octavius. \Exeunt. 

Scene III. — The Same. A Street. 

Enter Cinna, the Poet. 

Cin. I dreamt to-night that I did feast with Caesar, 
And things unlucky charge my fantasy : l 

to make their hearts yearn the more ; and taking Caesar's gown all bloody 
in his hand, he laid it open to the sight of them all, shewing what a number 
of cuts and holes it had upon it. Therewithal the people fell presently into 
such a rage and mutiny, that there was no more order kept amongst the 
common people. For some of them cried out " Kill the murderers" ; others 
plucked up forms, tables, and stalls about the market-place, as they had 
done before at the funerals of Clodius, and having laid them all on a heap 
together, they set them on fire, and thereupon did put the body of Caesar, 
and burnt it in the midst of the most holy places. And furthermore, when 
the fire was throughly kindled, some here, some there, took burning fire- 
brands, and ran with them to the murderers' houses that killed him, to set 
them on fire. Howbeit the conspirators, foreseeing the danger before, had 
wisely provided for themselves and fled. — PLUTARCH. 

1 Unlucky is ill-boding or portentous. Charge is burden or oppress. 



130 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT III. 

I have no will to wander forth of doors, 
Yet something leads me forth. 

Enter Citizens. 

1 Cit. What is your name ? 

2 Cit. Whither are you going? 

3 Cit. Where do you dwell? 

4 Cit. Are you a married man or a bachelor? 

2 Cit. Answer every man directly. 

1 Cit. Ay, and briefly. 
4 Cit. Ay, and wisely. 

3 Cit. Ay, and truly ; you were best. 

Cm. What is my name? Whither am I going? Where 
do I dwell? Am I a married man or a bachelor? Then, to 
answer every man directly and briefly, wisely and truly. 
Wisely I say I am a bachelor. 

2 Cit. That's as much as to say, they are fools that marry : 
you'll bear me a bang for that, 2 I fear. Proceed ; directly. 

Cin. Directly, I am going to Caesar's funeral. 

1 Cit. As a friend, or an enemy? 
Cin. As a friend. 

2 Cit. That matter is answered directly. 

4 Cit. For your dwelling, — briefly. 
Cin. Briefly, I dwell by the Capitol. 

3 Cit. Your name, sir, truly. 
Cin. Truly, my name is Cinna. 

1 Cit. Tear him to pieces ! he's a conspirator. 
Cin. I am Cinna the poet, I am Cinna the poet. 

4 Cit. Tear him for his bad verses, tear him for' his bad 
verses. 

Cin. I am not Cinna the conspirator. 

2 " You'll get a banging of me for that." 



scene I. JULIUS C^SAR. 131 

4 Cit. It is no matter ; his name's Cinna : pluck but his 
name out of his heart, and turn him going. 3 

j Cit. Tear him, tear him ! Come ; brands, ho ! fire- 
brands ! To Brutus', to Cassius' ; burn all. Some to De- 
cius' house, and some to Casca's ; some to Ligarius' : away, 
go ! \Exeunt. 



ACT IV. 

Scene I. — Rome. A Room in Antony's House} 

Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus, seated at a table. 

Ant, These many, then, shall die ; their names are prick'd. 
Oct. Your brother too must die : consent you, Lepidus ? 

3 There was a poet called Cinna, who had been no partaker of the con- 
spiracy, but was always one of Caesar's chiefest friends : he dreamed, the 
night before, that Caesar bad him to supper with him, and that, he refusing 
to go, Caesar was very importunate with him, and compelled him ; so that 
at length he led him by the hand into a great dark place, where, being mar- 
vellously afraid, he was driven to follow him in spite of his heart. This 
dream put him all night into a fever; and yet, notwithstanding, the next 
morning, when he heard that they carried Caesar's body to burial, being 
ashamed not to accompany his funerals, he went out of his house, and 
thrust himself into the press of the common people that were in a great 
uproar. And because some one called him by his name Cinna, the people, 
thinking he had been that Cinna who in an oration he made had spoken very 
evil of Caesar, they, falling upon him in their rage slew him outright in the 
market-place. — PLUTARCH. 

1 The time of this scene was, historically, in November, B.C. 43 ; some 
nineteen months after the preceding. — The place of the scene is shown to 
be at Rome, by Lepidus's being sent to Caesar's house, and told that he will 
find his confederates " or here, or at the Capitol." In fact, however, the 
triumvirs, Octavius, Antonius, and Lepidus, did not meet at Rome to settle 
the proscription, but on a small island near Bologna. Plutarch relates the 
matter as follows : " All three met together in an island environed round 



132 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT IV. 

Lep. I do consent, — 

Oct. Prick him down, Antony. 

Lep. — Upon condition Publius shall not live, 
Who is your sister's son, Mark Antony. 2 

Ant. He shall not live ; look, with a spot I damn 3 him. 
But, Lepidus, go you to Caesar's house ; 
Fetch the will hither, and we shall determine 
How to cut off some charge in legacies. 

Lep. What, shall I find you here ? 

Oct. Or here, or at the Capitol. \_Exit Lepidus. 

Ant. This is a slight unmeritable 4 man,. 
Meet to be sent on errands : is it fit, 
The threefold world divided, he should stand 
One of the three to share it ? 

Oct. So you thought him ; 

And took his voice who should be prick'd to die, 

about with a little river, and there remained three days together. Now, as 
touching all other matters they were easily agreed, and did divide all the 
empire of Rome between them, as if it had been their own inheritance. But 
yet they could hardly agree whom they would put to death : for every one 
of them would kill their enemies, and save their kinsmen and friends. Yet, 
at length, giving place to their greedy desire to be revenged of their enemies, 
they spurned all reverence of blood and holiness of friendship at their feet. 
For Caesar left Cicero to Antonius's will ; Antonius also forsook Lucius 
Caesar, who was his uncle by his mother ; and both of them together suf- 
fered Lepidus to kill his own brother Paulus. Yet some writers affirm that 
Caesar and Antonius requested Paulus might be slain, and that Lepidus was 
contented with it." 

2 According to Plutarch, as quoted in the preceding note, this was Lucius 
Caesar, not Publius; nor was he Antony's nephew, but his uncle by the 
mother's side. A mistake by the Poet, probably. 

3 Both the verb to damn and the noun damnation were often used in the 
sense of to condeT?m simply. So it is, properly, in the English Bible. 

4 Unmeritable for unmeriting or undeserving. This indiscriminate use 
of active and passive forms, both in adjectives and participles, is very fre- 
quent in Shakespeare. The usage was common. 



scene r. JULIUS CESAR. 133 

In our black sentence and proscription. 

Ant. Octavius, I have seen more days than you : 
And, though we lay these honours on this man, 
To ease ourselves of divers slanderous loads, 
He shall but bear them as the ass bears gold, 
To groan and sweat under the business, 
Either led or driven, as we point the way ; 
And having brought our treasure where we will, 
Then take we down his load, and turn him off, 
Like to the empty ass, to shake his ears, 
And graze in commons. 5 

Oct. You may do your will ; 

But he's a tried and valiant soldier. 

Ant. So is my horse, Octavius ; and for that 
I do appoint him store of provender : 
It is a creature that I teach to fight, 
To wind, 6 to stop, to run directly on, 
His corporal motion govern'd by my spirit. 
And, in some taste, is Lepidus but so ; 
He must be taught, and train'd, and bid go forth : 
A barren-spirited fellow ; one that feeds 
On objects, arts, and imitations, 
Which, out of use and staled by other men, 
Begin his fashion : 7 do not talk of him, 

5 Commons, here, is such pasture-lands as in England were not owned or 
appropriated by individuals, but occupied by a given neighbourhood in 
common. 

6 To wind is to turn or bend to the right or the left ; the opposite of run- 
ning " directly on," that is, straight ahead. 

7 That is, one who is always interested in, and talking about, such things 
— books, works of art, &c. — as everybody else has got tired of and thrown 
aside. So Falstaff 's account of Shallow, in 2 Henry the Fourth, iii. 2 : " He 
came ever in the rearward of the fashion ; and sung those tunes to the over- 
scutch'd huswives which he heard the carmen whistle, and sware they were 



134 JULIUS C^SAR. ACT IV. 

But as a property. And now, Octavius, 

Listen great things : Brutus and Cassius 

Are levying powers : we must straight make head : 8 

Therefore let our alliance be combined, 

Our best friends made, our means stretch'd out ; 

And let us presently go sit in council, 

How covert matters may be best disclosed, 

And open perils surest answered. 

Oct. Let us do so : for we are at the stake, 
And bay'd 9 about with many enemies ; 
And some that smile have in their hearts, I fear, 
Millions of mischiefs. [Exeunt 

Scene II. — Before Brutus' Tent, in the Camp near Sardis. 1 

Drum. Enter Brutus, Lucilius, Titinius, and Soldiers ; 
Pindarus meeting them ; Lucius at so7ne distance. 

Bru. Stand, ho ! 

Lucil. Give the word, ho ! and stand. 
Bru. What now, Lucilius ! is Cassius near? 
Lucil. He is at hand ; and Pindarus is come 
To do you salutation from his master. 

[Pindarus gives a letter to Brutus. 

his Fancies or his Good-nights." In the text, staled is outworn or grown 
stale ; and the reference is not to objects, &c, generally, but only to those 
which have lost the interest of freshness. 

8 To make head is to raise an army, or to lead one forth. Often so. 

9 An allusion to bear-baiting. One of the old English sports was, to tie 
a bear to a stake, and then set a pack of dogs to barking at him and worry- 
ing him. So in Macbeth, v. 7: " They've tied me to a stake; I cannot fly, 
but, bear-like, I must fight the course." See, also, page 112, note 34. 

1 This scene, again, is separated from the foregoing, historically, by about 
a year ; the remaining events of the drama having taken place in the Fall, 
B.C. 42. 



scene II. JULIUS C.'ESAR. 1 35 

Bru. He greets me well. — Your master, Pindarus, 
In his own charge, or by ill officers, 2 
Hath given me some worthy cause to wish 
Things done, undone : but, if he be at hand, 
I shall be satisfied. 

Pin. I do not doubt 

But that my noble master will appear 
Such as he is, full of regard and honour. 

Bru. He is not doubted. — A word, Lucilius : 
How he received you, let me be resolved. 

Lucil. With courtesy and with respect enough \ 
But not with such familiar instances, 
Nor with such free and friendly conference, 
As he hath used of old. 

Bru. Thou hast described 

A hot friend cooling : ever note, Lucilius, 
When love begins to sicken and decay, 
It useth an enforced ceremony. 
There are no tricks in plain and simple faith : 
But hollow men, like horses hot at hand, 3 
Make gallant show and promise of their mettle ; 
But, when they should endure the bloody spur, 
They fall their crests, and, like deceitful jades, 4 
Sink in the trial. Comes his army on? 

Lucil. They mean this night in Sardis to be quarter'd : 
The greater part, the Horse in general, 
Are come with Cassius. \_March within. 

2 That is, either by his own command, or by officers, subordinates, who 
have abused their trust, prostituting it to the ends of private gain. 

3 Horses spirited or mettlesome when held back, or restrained. 

4 Here, as often, fall is transitive ; let fall. — A deceitful jade is an unre- 
liable horse, or one that promises well in appearance, but " sinks in the 
trial." 



136 JULIUS CESAR. ACT IV. 

Bru. Hark ! he is arrived. 

March gently on to meet him. 

Enter Cassius and Soldiers. 

Cass. Stand, ho ! 

Bru. Stand, ho ! Speak the word along. 

Within. Stand ! 

Within. Stand ! 

Within. Stand ! 

Cass. Most noble brother, you have done me wrong. 

Bru. Judge me, you gods ! wrong I mine enemies? 
And, if not so, how should I wrong a brother ? 

Cass. Brutus, this sober form of yours hides wrongs ; 
And when you do them — 

Bru. Cassius, be content ; 

Speak your griefs softly ; I do know you well. 
Before the eyes of both our armies here, 
Which should perceive nothing but love from us, 
Let us not wrangle : bid them move away ; 
Then in my tent, Cassius, enlarge 5 your griefs, 
And I will give you audience. 

Cass. Pindarus, 

Bid our commanders lead their charges 6 off 
A little from this ground. 

Bru. Lucius, do you the like ; and let no man 
Come to our tent, till we have done our conference. — 
Lucilius and Titinius, guard our door. \_Exeunt. 

5 To enlarge is, properly, to set free or to let go at large ; here it means 
speak freely of ox unfold. 

6 " Their charges " are, of course, the troops under their command. 



scene III. JULIUS CJESAR. 137 

Scene III. — Within the tent of Brutus. 
Enter Brutus and Cassius. 

Cass. That you have wrong'd me doth appear in this : 
You have condemn'd and noted l Lucius Pella 
For taking bribes here of the Sardians ; 
Whereas my letters, praying on his side 
Because I knew the man, were slighted off. 

Bru. You wrong'd yourself to write 2 in such a case. 

Cass. In such a time as this it is not meet 
\ That every nice offence should bear his comment. 3 

Bru. And let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself 
Are much condemn'd to have an itching palm ; 
To sell and mart your offices for gold 
To undeservers. ^J 

Cass. I an itching palm ! 

You know that you are Brutus that speak this, 
Or, by the gods, this speech were else your last. 

Bru. The name of Cassius honours this corruption, 
And chastisement doth therefore hide his head. 

Cass. Chastisement ! 

1 That is, disgraced him, set a mark or stigma upon him. 

2 " Wrong'd yourself by writing." The infinitive used gerundively again. 
So too in the second speech after, " condemn'd to have " is condemn'd for 
having; also "to sell and mart" for selling and marling. The usage is un- 
commonly frequent in this play. 

3 His for its, as usual, referring to offence. The meaning is that every 
petty or trifling offence should not be rigidly scrutinized and censured. 
Nice was often used thus. — Cassius naturally thinks that " the honourable 
men whose daggers have stabb'd Coesar" should not peril their cause by 
moral squeamishness. And it is a very noteworthy point, that the digesting 
of that act seems to have entailed upon Brutus a sort of moral dyspepsia. 
It appears, a little further on, that he is more willing to receive and apply 
money got by others than to use the necessary means of getting it. 






138 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT IV. 

Bru. Remember March, the Ides of March remember : 
Did not great Julius bleed for justice' sake? 
What villain touch'd his body, that did stab, 
And not for justice? 4 What ! shall one of us, 
That struck the foremost man of all tlvs world 
But for supporting robbers, — shall we now 
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes, 
And sell the mighty space of our large honours 
For so much trash as may be grasped thus ? 
I had rather be a dog, and bay the Moon, 
Than such a Roman. 5 

Cass. Brutus, bay not me, 

I'll not endure it : you forget yourself, 
To hedge me in ; 6 I am a soldier, ay, "~ 
Older in practice, abler than yourself 

4 Of course the meaning is, " Who of the stabbers was such a villain as 
to stab from any other motive than justice ? " 

5 Brutus, upon complaint of the Sardians, did condemn and note Lucius 
Pella for a defamed person, that had been a Praetor of the Romans, and 
whom Brutus had given charge unto ; for that he was accused and con- 
victed of robbery and pilfery in his office. This judgment much misliked 
Cassius, because he himself had secretly (not many days before) warned 
two of his friends, attainted and convicted of the like offences, and openly 
had cleared them : but yet he did not therefore leave to employ them in any 
manner of service as he did before. And therefore he greatly reproved 
Brutus, for that he would shew himself so straight and severe, in such a 
time as was meeter to bear a little than to take things at the worst. Brutus 
in contrary manner answered, that he should remember the Ides of March, 
at which time they slew Julius Caesar, who neither pilled nor polled the 
country, but only was a favourer and suborner of all them that did rob and 
spoil, by his countenance and authority. And if there were any occasion 
whereby they might honestly set aside justice and equity, they should have 
had more reason to have suffered Caesar's friends to have robbed and done 
what wrong and injury they had would than to bear with their own men. 
— Plutarch. 

6 Still another gerundial infinitive : "In hedging me in." 



SCENE III. JULIUS CESAR. 139 

To make conditions. 7 

Bru. Go to ; 8 you are not, Cassius. 

Cass. I am. 

Bru. I say you are not. 

Cass. Urge me no more, I shall forget myself; 
Have mind upon your health, tempt me no further. 

Bru. Away, slight man ! 

Cass. Is't possible ? 

Bru'. Hear me, for I will speak. 

Must I give way -and room to your rash choler ? 
Shall I be frighted when a madman stares ? 

Cass. O ye gods, ye gods ! must I endure all this ? 

Bru. All this ! ay, more : fret, till your proud heart 
^ break ; 

Go show your slaves how choleric you are, 
And make your bondmen tremble. Must I budge ? 
Must I observe you ? Must I stand and crouch 
Under your testy humour? By the gods, 
You shall digest the venom of your spleen, 9 
Though it do split you ; for from this day forth 
I'll use you for my mirth, yea, for my laughter, 
When you are waspish. 

Cass. Is it come to this ? 

7 Now Cassius would have done Brutus much honour, as Brutus did 
unto him, but Brutus most commonly prevented him, and went first unto 
him, both because he was the elder man as also for that he was sickly of 
body. And men reputed him commonly to be very skilful in wars, but 
otherwise marvellous choleric and cruel, who sought to rule men by fear 
rather than with lenity. — PLUTARCH. 

8 Go to is a phrase of varying import, sometimes of reproof, sometimes of 
encouragement. Hush up, come on, go ahead, be off are among its mean- 
ings. It was used a great deal, especially in colloquial speech. 

9 The spleen was held to be the special seat of the sudden and explosive 
emotions and passions, whether of mirth or anger. 



140 JULIUS CESAR, act iv. 

Bru. You say you are a better soldier : 
Let it appear so ; make your vaunting true, 
And it shall please me well : for mine own part, 
I shall be glad to learn of abler men. 

Cass. You wrong me every way, you wrong me, Brutus ; 
I said an elder soldier, not a better : 10 
Did I say better ? 

Bru. If you did, I care not. 

Cass. When Caesar lived he durst not thus have "moved 
me. 

Bru. Peace, peace ! you durst not so have tempted him. 

Cass. I durst not ! 

Bru. No. 

Cass. What, durst not tempt him ? 

Bru. For your life you durst not. 

Cass. Do not presume too much upon my love ; 
I may do that I shall be sorry for. 

Bru. You have done that you should be sorry for. 
There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats ; 
; For I am arm'd so strong in honesty, 
I That they pass by me as the idle wind, 
-( Which I respect not. I did send to you 

For certain sums of gold, which you denied me ; — 
For I can raise no money by vile means : 
By Heaven, I had rather coin my heart, 

10 This mistake of Brutus is well conceived. Cassius was much the abler 
soldier, and Brutus knew it; and the mistake grew from his consciousness 
of the truth of what he thought he heard. Long before this time, Cassius 
had served as Quaestor under Marcus Crassus in his expedition against 
the Parthians ; and when the army was torn all to pieces, both Crassus and 
his son being killed, Cassius displayed great ability in bringing off a rem- 
nant ; as he also did for some time after that, in the military administration 
of Syria. 



J 



scene in. JULIUS C^SAR. 141 

And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring 
From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash 
By any indirection : l] — I did send 
To you for gold to pay my legions, 
Which you denied me : was that done like Cassius ? 
Should I have answer'd Caius Cassius so? 
When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous, 
To lock such rascal counters l2 from his friends, 
J Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts, 
1 Dash him to pieces ! ^ 

Cass. I denied you not. 13 

Bru. You did. 

Cass. I did not : he was but a fool 

That brought my answer back. Brutus hath rived my heart : 

11 Indirection is, properly, crookedness. As the Latin directus is straight, 
hence right, so indirectus is crooked, hence wrong. 

12 " So covetous as to lock," of course. The Poet often omits as in such 
cases, for prosodical reasons. — Rascal 'was much used as a general term of 
contempt, meaning worthless or base. — Counters were round pieces of cheap 
metal used in making calculations. — Professor Dowden comments snugly 
on what we have here : " Brutus loves virtue and despises gold ; but in the 
logic of facts there is an irony cruel or pathetic. Brutus maintains a lofty 
position. of immaculate honour above Cassius; but ideals, and a heroic 
contempt for gold, will not fill tl»e military coffer, or pay the legions; and 
the poetry of noble sentiment suddenly drops down to the prosaic complaint 
that Cassius had denied the demands made by Brutus for certain sums of 
money. Nor is Brutus, though he worships an ideal of Justice, quite just in 
matters of concrete practical detail." 

13 Whilst Brutus and Cassius were together in the city of Smyrna, Brutus 
prayed Cassius to let him have part of the money whereof he had great 
store. Cassius's friends hindered this request, and earnestly dissuaded him 
from it ; persuading him, that it was no reason that Brutus should have the 
money which Cassius had gotten together by sparing, and levied with great 
evil will of the people their subjects, for him to bestow liberally upon his 
soldiers, and by this means to win their good wills, by Cassius's charge. 
Notwithstanding, Cassius gave him the third part of this total sum. — 
Plutarch. 



142 JULIUS C.-ESAR. ACT IV. 

A friend should bear his friends infirmities, 
But Brutus makes mine greater than they are. 

Bru. I do not, till you practise them on me. 

Cass. You love me not. 

Bru. I do not like your faults. 

Cass. A friendly eye could never see such faults. 

Brit. A flatterer's would not, though they did appear 
As huge as high Olympus. 

Cass. Come, Antony and young Octavius, come, 
Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius, 
For Cassius is a-\veary of the world ; 
Hated by one he loves ; braved H by his brother ; 
Check'd like a bondman ; all his faults observed, 
Set in a note-book, learn'd, and conn'd by rote, 
To cast into my teeth. O, I could weep 
My spirit from mine eyes ! — There is my dagger, 
And here my naked breast ; within, a heart 
Dearer than Plutus' mine, 15 richer than gold : 
If that thou be'st a Roman, take it forth ; 
I, that denied thee gold, will give my heart : 
Strike as thou didst at Caesar ; for I know, 
When thou didst hate him worst, thou lovedst him better 
Than ever thou lovedst Cassius. 

Bru. Sheath your dagger : 

Be angry when you will, it shall have scope ; 
Do what you will, dishonour shall be humour. 16 
O Cassius, you are yoked with a lamb 

14 Braved is defied, or treated with bluster and bravado. 

15 Plutus is the old god of riches, who had all the world's gold in his 
keeping and disposal. 

16 " Whatever dishonourable thing you may do, I will set it down to the 
humour or infirmity of the moment." 



scene in. JULIUS CAESAR. 143 

That carries anger as the flint bears fire ; n 
Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spark, 
And straight is cold again. 

Cass. Hath Cassius lived 

To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus, 
When grief, and blood ill-temper'd, vexeth him ? 

Bru. When I spoke that, I was ill-temper'd too. 

Cass. Do you confess so much ? Give me your hand. 

Bru. And my heart too. 

Cass. O Brutus, — 

Bru. What's the matter? 

Cass. — Have you not love enough to bear with me, 
When that rash humour which my mother gave me 
Makes me forgetful? 

Bru. Yes, Cassius ; and henceforth, 

When you are over-earnest with your Brutus, 
He'll think your mother chides, and leave you so. 

\Noise within. 

Poet. [ Within?^ Let me go in to see the generals : 
There is some grudge between 'em ; 'tis not meet 
They be alone. 

Lucil. [ Within.~\ You shall not come to them. 

Poet. [ Within.~\ Nothing but death shall stay me. 

Enter 'Poet, followed by Lucilius and Tmmus. 
Cass. How now ! What's the matter ? 

17 In my boyhood, the idea was common, of fire sleeping in the flint, and 
being awaked by the stroke of the steel. I am not sure whether it was 
known in the Poet's time, that in fact the flint cuts off microscopic bits of 
steel, which are ignited by the friction. Hooker takes it as Shakespeare 
does ; Ecclesiastical Polity, vii. 22, 3 : "It is not sufficient to carry religion 
in our hearts, as fire is carried in flint-stones, but we are outwardly, visibly, 
apparently, to serve and honour the living God." 



144 JULIUS CESAR, act iv. 

Poet. For shame, you generals ! what do you mean? 
Xove, and be friends, as two such men should be ; 
For I have seen more years, I'm sure, than ye. 18 

Cass. Ha, ha ! how vilely doth this cynic rhyme ! 

Bru. Get you hence, sirrah ; saucy fellow, hence ! 

Cass. Bear with him, Brutus ; 'tis his fashion. 

Bru. I'll know his humour, when he knows his time : 
What should the wars do with these jigging fools? — 
Companion, hence ! 19 

Cass. Away, away, be gone ! [Exit Poet. 

18 Before they fell in hand with any other matter, they went into a little 
chamber together, and bade every man avoid, and did shut the doors to 
them. Then they began to pour out their complaints one to the other, and 
grew hot and loud, earnestly accusing one another, and at length both fell 
a-weeping. Their friends that were without the chamber, hearing them 
loud within, and angry between themselves, were both amazed and afraid 
also, lest it would grow to further matter ; but yet they were commanded 
that no man should come to them. Notwithstanding, one Marcus Favo- 
nius, that took upon him to counterfeit a philosopher, not with wisdom and 
discretion, but with a certain bedlam and frantic motion ; he would needs 
come into the chamber, though the men offered to keep him out. But it 
was no boot to let Favonius, when a mad mood or toy took him in the 
head : for he was an hot hasty man, and sudden in all his doings, and 
cared for never a Senator of them all. Now, though he used this bold 
manner of speech after the profession of the Cynic philosophers, (as who 
would say, Dogs,) yet his boldness did not hurt many times, because they 
did but laugh at him to see him so mad. This Favonius at that time, in 
despite of the door-keepers, came into the chamber, and with a certain 
scoffing and mocking gesture, which he counterfeited of purpose, he re- 
hearsed the verses which old Nestor said in Homer : — 

My lords, I pray you hearken both to me, 
For I have seen mo years than suchie three 

Cassius fell a-laughing at him ; but Brutus thrust him out of the chamber, 
and called him dog, and counterfeit Cynic. Howbeit his coming in brake 
their strife at that time, and so they left each other. — PLUTARCH. 

19 yig signified a ballad or ditty, as well as a dance. Companion is here 
a term of contempt, as we now use fellow. 



SCENE III. JULIUS C^SAR. 145 

Bru. Lucilius and Titinius, bid the commanders 
Prepare to lodge their companies to-night. 

Cass. And come yourselves, and bring Messala with you 
Immediately to us. \_Exeunt Lucilius and Titinius. 

Bru. Lucius, a bowl of wine ! 

Cass. I did not think you could have been so angry. 

Bru. O Cassius, I am sick of many griefs. 

Cass. Of your philosophy you make no use, 
If you give place to accidental evils. 20 

Bru. No man bears sorrow better. Portia is dead. 

Cass. Ha ! Portia ! 

Bru. She is dead. 

Cass. How 'scaped I killing, when I cross'd you so ? — 
O insupportable and touching loss ! — 
Upon what sickness ? 

Bru. Impatient 21 of my absence, 

And grief that young Octavius with Mark Antony 
Have made themselves so strong ; — for with her death 
That tidings came ; — with this she fell distract, 22 
And, her attendants absent, swallow'd fire. 23 

20 In his philosophy, Brutus was a mixture of the Stoic and the Platonist. 
What he says of Portia's death is among the best things in the play, and is 
in Shakespeare's noblest style. Deep grief loves not many words. 

21 Strict harmony of construction would require impatience here, or else 
grieved for grief in the next line. But the Poet is not very particular in 
such matters. The sense is clear enough. 

22 Distract for distracted. The shortening of preterites in this way was 
very common ; and Shakespeare has many instances of it. See Hamlet, 
page 165, note 32. 

23 It appears something uncertain whether Portia's death was before or 
after her husband's. Plutarch represents it as occurring before ; but Meri- 
vale follows those who place it after. Plutarch's account is as follows : " For 
Portia, Brutus's wife, Nicolaus 'the philosopher and Valerius Maximus do 
write, that she determining to kill herself (her frjends, carefully looking to 
her to keep her from it) took, hot burning coals, and cast thein into her 



146 JULIUS CLESAR. ACT IV. 

Cass. And died so ? 

Bru. Even so. 

Cass. O ye immortal gods ! 

Enter Lucius, with wine and a taper. 

Bru. Speak no more of her. — Give me a bowl of wine. — 
In this I bury all unkindness, Cassius. \_Drinks. 

Cass. My heart is thirsty for that noble pledge. — 
Fill, Lucius, till the wine o'erswell the cup ; 
I cannot drink too much of Brutus' love. \_Drinks. 

Bru. Come in, Titinius ! — \_Exit Lucius. 

Re-enter Titinius, with Messala. 

Welcome, good Messala. — 
Now sit we close about this taper here, 
And call in question 24 our necessities. 

Cass. Portia, art thou gone ? 

Bru. No more, I pray you. — 

Messala, I have here received letters, 
That young Octavius and Mark Antony 
Come down upon us with a mighty power, 
Bending their expedition 25 toward Philippi. 

Mes. Myself have letters of the selfsame tenour. 

Bru. With what addition? 

Mes. That, by proscription and bills of outlawry, 
Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus, 

mouth, and kept her mouth so close that she choked herself. There was a 
letter of Brutus found, written to his friends, complaining of their negligence, 
that, his wife being sick, they would not help her, but suffered her to kill her- 
self, choosing to die rather than to languish in pain." >. 

24 " Call in question " here means talk or eonverse about. Question, both 
as noun and verb, was often used in that sense. 

25 Directing their march. So the Poet has expedition repeatedly. 



SCENE ill. JULIUS CESAR. 147 

Have put to death an hundred Senators. 

Bru. Therein our letters do not well agree : 
Mine speak of seventy Senators that died 
By their proscriptions, Cicero being one. 26 

Cass. Cicero one ! 

Mes. Cicero is dead, 
And by that order of proscription. — 
Had you your letters from your wife, my lord ? 

Bru. No, Messala. 

Mes. Nor nothing in your letters writ of her? 

Bru. Nothing, Messala. 27 

Mes. That, methinks, is strange. 

Bru. Why ask you ? hear you ought of her in yours ? 

Mes. No, my lord. 

Bru. Now, as you are a Roman, tell me true. 

Mes. Then like a Roman bear the truth I tell : 
For certain she is dead, and by strange manner. 

Bru. Why, farewell, Portia. — We must die, Messala : 
With meditating that she must die once, 28 
I have the patience to endure it now. 

Mes. Even so great men great losses should endure. 

26 These three, Octavius Csesar, Antonius, and Lepidus, made an agree- 
ment among themselves, and by those articles divided the provinces belong- 
ing to the empire of Rome among themselves, and did set up bills of pro- 
scription and outlawry, condemning two hundred of the noblest men of 
Rome to suffer death, and among that number Cicero was one. — Plu- 
tarch. 

27 This may seem inconsistent with what has gone before : but we are to 
suppose that Brutus's friends at Rome did not write to him directly of Por- 
tia's death, lest the news might upset him too much ; but wrote to some 
common friends in the army, directing them to break the news to him, as 
they should deem it safe and prudent to do so. 

28 Once for one time or other, sometime. So in The Merry Wives, iii. 4 : 
" I pray thee, once to-night give my sweet Nan this ring." 



148 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT IV. 

Cass. I have as much of this in art 29 as you, 
But yet my nature could not bear it so. 

Bru. Well, to our work alive. 30 What do you think 
Of marching to Philippi presently ? 

Cass. I do not think it good. 

Bru. Your reason ? 

Cass. This it is : 

'Tis better that the enemy seek us : 
So shall he waste his means, weary his soldiers, 
Doing himself offence ; whilst we, lying still, 
Are full of rest, defence, and nimbleness. 

Bru. Good reasons must, of force, 31 give place to better. 
The people 'twixt Philippi and this ground 
Do stand but in a forced affection ; 
For they have grudged us contribution : 
The enemy, marching along by them, 
By them shall make a fuller number up, 
Come on refresh'd, new-aided, and encouraged ; 
From which advantage shall we cut him off, 
If at Philippi we do face him there, 
These people at our back. 

Cass. Hear me, good brother. 

29 Art was sometimes used for theory as opposed to practice. 

30 Probably meaning " the work we have to do with the living." 

31 Of force is of necessity, or necessarily. — Plutarch represents this talk 
as occurring at Philippi just before the battle : " Cassius was of opinion not 
to try this war at one battle, but rather to delay time, and to draw it out in 
length, considering that they were the stronger in money, and the weaker in 
men and armour. But Brutus, in contrary manner, did always before and 
at that time also, desire nothing more than to put all to the hazard of battle, 
as soon as might be possible ; to the end he might either quickly restore his 
country to her former liberty, or rid him forthwith of this miserable world, 
being still troubled in following and maintaining of such great armies to- 
gether." 



scene in. JULIUS CAESAR. 149 

Bru. Under your pardon. You must note besides, 
That we have tried the utmost of our friends, 
Our legions are brim-full, our cause is ripe : 
The enemy increaseth every day ; 
We, at the height, are ready to decline. 
There is a tide in the affairs of men, 
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune ; 
Omitted, all the voyage of their life 
Is bound in shallows and in miseries. 
On such a full sea are we now afloat ; 
And we must take the current when it serves, 
Or lose our ventures. 32 

Cass. Then, with your will, go on : 

We will along ourselves, and meet them at Philippi. 

Bru. The deep of night is crept upon our talk, 
And nature must obey necessity ; 
Which we will niggard with a little rest. 
There is no more to say? 

Cass. No more. Good night : 

Early to-morrow will we rise, and hence. 

Bru. Lucius, my gown ! — Farewell now, good Messala : — 
Good night, Titinius : — noble, noble Cassius, 
Good night, and good repose. 

Cass. O my dear brother ! 

This was an ill beginning of the night : 
Never come such division 'tween our souls ! 
Let it not, Brutus. 

Bru. Every thing is well. 

Cass. Good night, my lord. 

32 Ventures for what is risked or adventured. The figure of a ship is kept 
up ; and venture denotes whatever is put on board, in hope of profit. The 
Poet has it repeatedly so. 



150 JULIUS C^SAR. ACT IV. 

Bru. Good night, good brother. 

Tit ) 

' \ Good night, Lord Brutus. 

Mes.) & 

Bru. Farewell, every one. — 

[Exeunt Cassius, Titinius, and Messala. 

Re-enter Lucius, with the gown. 

Give me the gown. Where is thy instrument ? 

Luc. Here in the tent. 

Bru. What, thou speak'st drowsily : 

Poor knave, 33 I blame thee not ; thou art o'er-watch'd. 
Call Claudius and some other of my men ; 
I'll have them sleep on cushions in my tent. 

Luc. Varro and Claudius ! 

Enter Varro and Claudius. 

Var. Calls my lord? 

Bru. I pray you, sirs, lie in my tent, and sleep ; 
It may be I shall raise you by-and-by 
On business to my brother Cassius. 

Var. So please you, we will stand and watch your pleasure. 

Bru. I will not have it so ; lie down, good sirs : 
It may be I shall otherwise bethink me. — 
Look, Lucius, here's the book I sought for so ; 
I put it in the pocket of my gown. 34 [Servants lie down. 

Luc. I was sure your lordship did not give it me. 

Bru. Bear with me, good boy ; I am much forgetful. 

33 Knave was much used as a term of endearment, or of loving familiarity 
with those of lower rank. 

34 These two simple lines are among the best things in the play. Just 
consider how much is implied in them, and what a picture they give of the 
earnest, thoughtful, book-loving Brutus. And indeed all his noblest traits 
of character come out, " in simple and pure soul," in this exquisite scene 
with Lucius, which is hardly surpassed by any thing in Shakespeare. 



scene in. JULIUS CLESAR. 151 

Canst thou hold up thy heavy eyes awhile, - 
And touch thy instrument a strain or two ? 

Luc. Ay, my lord, an't please you. 

Bru. It does, my boy : 

I trouble thee too much, but thou art willing. 

Luc. It is my duty, sir. 

Bru. I should not urge thy duty past thy might ; 
I know young bloods 35 look for a time of rest. 

Luc. I have slept, my lord, already. 

Bru. It was well done ; and thou shalt sleep again ; 
I will not hold thee long : if I do live, 
I will be good to thee. — 

[Lucius plays and sings till he falls asleep. 
This is a sleepy tune. — O murderous Slumber, 
Lay'st thou thy leaden mace upon my boy, 
That plays thee music ? 36 — Gentle knave, good night ; 
I will not do thee so much wrong to wake thee : 
If thou dost nod, thou breakst thy instrument ; 
I'll take it from thee ; and, good boy, good night. — 
Let me see, let me see ; is not the leaf turn'd down 
Where I left reading ? Here it is, I think. 

Enter the Ghost of Caesar. 
How ill this taper burns ! 37 — Ha ! who comes here ? 

35 Bloods for persons. So in Much Ado, Hi.' 3 : " How giddily he turns 
about all the hot bloods between fourteen and five-and-thirty." 

30 Mace was formerly used for sceptre. The mace is called leaden, from 
its causing heaviness in the subject of it. — Slumber has the epithet mur- 
derous, because sleep is regarded as the image of death ; or, as Shelley puts 
it, " Death and his brother Sleep." — The boy is spoken of as playing music 
to Slumber, because the purpose of his music is to soothe the perturbations 
out of his master's mind, and put him to sleep. 

37 The coming of a ghost was believed to make lights burn dimly. So, 
in Richard the Third, v. 3, when the ghosts appear to Richard, he says, " The 
lights burn blue." 



152 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT IV. 

I think it is the weakness of mine eyes 
That shapes this monstrous apparition. 
It comes upon me. — Art thou any thing? 
Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil, 
That makest my blood cold, and my hair to stare? 38 
Speak to me what thou art. 

Ghost. Thy evil spirit, Brutus. 

Bru. Why comest thou? 

Ghost To tell thee thou shalt see me at Philippi. 

Bi'u. Well ; then I shall see thee again ? 

Ghost. Ay, at Philippi. 

Bru. Why, I will see thee at Philippi, then. 

[ Ghost vanishes. 
Now I have taken heart, thou vanishest : 39 
111 spirit, I would hold more talk with thee. 40 — 

38 A singular use of stare. Of course it must mean to stick out, or, as it 
is in Hamlet, to " stand an *»</, like quills upon the fretful porpentine." We 
have a similar expression in The Tempest, i. 2 : " Ferdinand, with hair up- 
staring, — then like reeds, not hair." 

39 This strongly, though quietly, marks the Ghost as subjective : as soon 
as Brutus recovers his firmness, the illusion is broken. The order of things 
is highly judicious here, in bringing the " horrible vision " upon Brutus just 
after he has heard of Portia's shocking death. With that great sorrow 
weighing upon him, he might well see ghosts. The thickening of calami- 
ties upon him, as the consequences of his stabbing exploit, naturally awakens 
remorse. 

40 Above all, the ghost that appeared unto Brutus shewed plainly that the 
gods were offended with the murder of Caesar. The vision was thus : Bru- 
tus, being ready to pass over his army from the city of Abydos to the other 
coast lying directly against it, slept every night (as his manner was) in his 
tent ; and being yet awake, thinking of his affairs (for by report he was as 
careful a captain, and lived with as little sleep as ever man did) he thought 
he heard a noise at his tent-door, and, looking towards the light of the lamp 
that waxed very dim, he saw a horrible vision of a man, of a wonderful 
greatness and dreadful look, which at the first made him marvellously afraid. 
But when he saw that it did him no hurt, but stood at his bed-side and said 



scene III. JULIUS CAESAR. 153 

Boy ! Lucius ! — Varro ! Claudius ! Sirs, awake ! — 
Claudius ! 

Luc. The strings, my lord, are false. 

Bru. He thinks he still is at his instrument. — 
Lucius, awake !. 

Luc. My lord ? 

Bru. Didst thou dream, Lucius, that thou so criedst out ? 

Luc. My lord, I do not know that I did cry. 

Bru. Yes, that thou didst : didst thou see any thing ? 

Luc. Nothing, my lord. 

Bru. Sleep again, Lucius. — Sirrah Claudius ! — - 
\_To Var.] Fellow thou, awake ! 

Var. My lord ? 

Clau. My lord? 

Bru. Why did you so cry out, sirs, in your sleep ? 

[■Did we, my lord ? 
Clau. ) 

Bru. Ay : saw you any thing ? 

Var. No, my lord, I saw nothing. 

Clau. Nor I, my lord. 

Bru. Go and commend me to my brother Cassius ; 
Bid him set on his powers betimes 41 before, 
And we will follow. 

Var. 

Clau. 



, ) 

> It shall be done, my lord. [ Exeunt 

11. ) 



nothing ; at length he asked him what he was. The image answered him : 
" I am thy ill angel, Brutus, and thou shalt see me by the city of Philippes." 
Then Brutus replied again, and said," Well, I shall see thee then." There, 
withal the spiiit presently vanished from him. — PLUTARCH. 
41 Betimes is early, promptly, or in good time. 



154 JULIUS OESAR. ACT V. 



ACT V. 

Scene I. — The Plains of Philippic 
Enter Octavius, Antony, and their Army. 

Oct Now, Antony, our hopes are answered. 
You said the enemy would not come down, 
But keep the hills and upper regions : 
It proves not so ; their battles l are at hand : 
They mean to warn 2 us at Philippi here, 
Answering before we do demand of them. 

Ant. Tut, I am in their bosoms, and I know 

Wherefore they do it : they could 3 be content 

To visit other places ; and come down 

With fearful bravery, 4 thinking by this face 

To fasten in our thoughts that they have courage ; 

But 'tis not so. 

Enter a Messenger. 

Mess. Prepare you, generals : 

1 Battle was used for an army, especially an army embattled, or ordered 
in battle-array. The plural is here used with historical correctness, as Bru- 
tus and Cassius had each an army : the two armies of course co-operating, 
and acting together as one. 

2 To warn for to summon. So in King "John : " Who is it that hath 
warn'd us to the walls ? " And in King Richard III. : " And sent to warn 
them to his royal presence." 

3 Could for would. The auxiliaries could, should, and would were often 
used indiscriminately. — Content, here, means more than in our use, and has 
the sense of be glad, or prefer. 

4 Bravery is bravado or defiance. Often so. The epithet fearful prob- 
ably means that fear is what thus puts them upon attempting to intimidate 
by display and brag. 



scene I. JULIUS CAESAR. 1 55 

The enemy comes on in gallant show ; 
Their bloody sign of battle is hung out, 
And something to be done immediately. 

Ant. Octavius, lead your battle softly on, 
Upon the left hand of the even field. 

Oct. Upon the right hand I ; keep thou the left. 

Ant. Why do you cross me in this exigent? 

Oct. I do not cross you ; but I will do so. 5 [March. 

Drum. Enter Brutus, Cassius, and their Army ■ Lucilius^- 
Titinius, Messala, and Others. 

Bru. They stand, and would have parley. 
Cass. Stand fast, Titinius : we must out and talk. 
Oct. Mark Antony, shall we give sign of battle ? 
Ant. No, Csesar, we will answer on their charge. 6 
Make forth ; the generals would have some words. . 
Oct. Stir not until the signal. 
Bru. Words before blows : is it so, countrymen ? 
Oct. Not that we love words better, as you do. 
Bru. Good words are better than bad strokes, Octavius. 

5 That is, " I will do as I have said"; not, " I will cross you." — At this 
time, Octavius was but twenty-one years old, and Antony was old enough to 
be his father. At the time of Caesar's death, when Octavius was in his nine- 
teenth year, Antony thought he was going to manage him easily and have 
it all his own way with him, but he found the youngster as stiff as a crow- 
bar, and could do nothing with him. Caesar's youngest sister Julia was 
married to Marcus Atius Balbus, and their daughter Atia, again, was mar- 
ried to Caius Octavius, a nobleman of the Plebeian order. From this mar- 
riage sprang the present Octavius, who afterwards became the Emperor 
Augustus. He was mainly educated by his great-uncle, was advanced to 
the Patrician order, and was adopted as his son and heir ; so that his full 
and proper designation at this time was Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus. 
The text gives a right taste of the man, who always stood firm as a post 
against Antony, till the latter finally knocked himself to pieces against him. 

6 Charge for attack ; and answer in the sense of meet in combat. 



156 JULIUS CAESAR. act v. 

Ant. In your bad strokes, Brutus, you give good words : 
Witness the hole you made in Caesar's heart, 
Crying, Long live ! hail, Ccesar / 

Cass. Antony, 

The posture of your blows are yet unknown ; 7 
But, for your words, they rob the Hybla bees, 
And leave them honeyless. 8 

Ant. Not stingless too. 

Bru. O, yes, and soundless too ; 
For you have stol'n their buzzing, Antony, 
And very wisely threat before you sting. 

Ant. Villains, you did not so when your vile daggers 
Hack'd one another in the sides of Caesar : 
You show'd your teeth like apes, and fawn'd like hounds, 
And bow'd like bondmen, kissing Caesar's feet ; 
Whilst damned Casca, like a cur, behind 
Struck Caesar on the neck. O flatterers ! 

Cass. Flatterers ! — Now, Brutus, thank yourself : 
This tongue had not offended so to-day, 
If Cassius might have ruled. 

Oct. Come, come, the cause : if arguing makes us sweat, 
The proof of it will turn to redder drops. 
Look, — 

I draw a sword against conspirators : 
When think you that the sword goes up again ? 
Never, till Caesar's three-and-thirty wounds 

7 Posture for nature or character, probably ; rather an odd use of the 
word. — The verb are is made to agree with the nearest substantive, blows, 
instead of with its proper nominative, posture. Such loosenesses of grammar 
were common. See Hamlet, page 57, note 12. 

8 Hybla was the name of a place in Sicily, noted for the fine flavour of its 
honey. — The meaning is, that Antony could not be so " honey-tongued," 
unless he had quite exhausted thyme-flavoured Hybla. 



scene I. JULIUS CESAR. 157 

Be well avenged ; 9 or till another Caesar 
Have added slaughter to the sword of traitors. 10 

Bru. Caesar, thou canst not die by traitor's hands, 
Unless thou bring'st them with thee. 

Oct. So I hope ; 

I was not born to die on Brutus' sword. 

Bru. O, if thou wert the noblest of thy strain, 11 
Young man, thou couldst not die more honourably. 

Cass. A peevish schoolboy, worthless of such honour, 
Join'd with a masker and a reveller ! 13 

Ant. Old Cassius still ! 

Oct. Come, Antony ; away ! — 

Defiance, traitors, hurl we in your teeth : 
If you dare fight to-day, come to the field ; 
If not, when you have stomachs. 13 

[Exeunt Octavius, Antony, and their Army. 

Cass. Why, now, blow wind, swell billow, and swim bark ! 

9 The historical number of Caesar's wounds is three-a.nd-twenty, and so 
Shakespeare read it in Plutarch. But the poets care little for exactness in 
such matters. In Beaumont and Fletcher's Two Noble Gentlemen, we have 
" Caesar's two-and-thirty wounds." — This man, Octavius, has been a stand- 
ing puzzle and enigma to the historians, from the seeming contradictions of 
his character. The later writers, however, especially Merivale and Smith, 
find that the one principle that gave unity to his life and reconciled those 
contradictions, was a steadfast, inflexible purpose to avenge the murder of 
his illustrious uncle and adoptive father. 

10 •• Till you, traitors as you are, have added the slaughtering of me, an- 
other Caesar, to that of Julius." 

11 Strain is stock, lineage, or race ; a common use of the word in Shake- 
speare's time. So in King Henry V., ii. 4 : " He is bred out of that bloody 
strain, that haunted us in our familiar paths." 

12 A peevish school-boy, joined with a masker and a reveller, and un- 
worthy even of that honour. The more common meaning of peevish was 
foolish. 

13 Stomach was often used for appetite. Here it means an appetite for 
fighting, of course. See Hamlet, page 51, note 29. 



158 JULIUS CESAR. 



ACT V. 



The storm is up, and all is on the hazard. 

Bru. Ho, Lucilius ! hark, a word with you. 

Lucil. My lord ? [Brutus and Lucilius talk apart. 

Cass. Messala, — 

Mes. What says my General? 

Cass. Messala, 

This is my birth -day ; as this very day 
Was Cassius born. Give me thy hand, Messala : 
Be thou my witness that against my will, 
As Pompey was, 14 I am compell'd to set 
Upon one battle all our liberties. 
You know that I held Epicurus strong, 15 
And his opinion : now I change my mind, 
And partly credit things that do presage. 
Coming from Sardis, on our foremost ensign 
Two mighty eagles fell ; and there they perch'd, 
Gorging and feeding from our soldiers' hands ; 
Who to Philippi here consorted us : 
This morning are they fled away and gone ; ,6 

14 Alluding to the battle of Pharsalia, which took place in the year B.C. 48. 
Pompey was forced into that battle, against his better judgment, by the in- 
experienced and impatient men about him, who, inasmuch as they had 
more than twice Caesar's number of troops, fancied they could easily crunch 
him up if they could but meet him. So they tried it, and he quickly 
crunched up them. 

15 " I was strongly attached to the doctrines of Epicurus." Plutarch has 
the following in reference to the ghosting of Brutus : " Cassius being in 
opinion an Epicurean, and reasoning thereon with Brutus, spake to him 
touching the vision thus : ' In our sect, Brutus, we have an opinion, that we 
do not always feel or see that which we suppose we do both see and feel, 
but that our senses, being credulous and therefore easily abused, (when they 
are idle and unoccupied in their own objects,) are induced to imagine they 
see and conjecture that which in truth they do not." " 

16 When they raised their camp, there came two eagles that, flying with 
a marvellous force, lighted upon two of the foremost ensigns, and always 



SCENE I. JULIUS C^SAR. 159 

And in their steads do ravens, crows, and kites 
Fly o'er our heads, and downward look on us, 
As we were sickly prey : 17 their shadows seem 
A canopy most fatal, under which 
Our army lies, ready to give up the ghost. 

Mes. Believe not so. 

Cass. I but believe it partly ; 

For I am fresh of spirit, and resolved 
To meet all perils very constantly. 18 

Bru. Even so, Lucilius. 

Cass. Now, most noble Brutus, 

The gods to-day stand friendly, that we may, 
Lovers in peace, lead on our days to age ! 

followed the soldiers, which gave them meat and fed them, until they came 
near to the city of Philippes ; and there, one day only before the battle, they 
both flew away. — PLUTARCH. 

17 And yet further, there were seen a marvellous number of fowls of prey, 
that feed upon dead carcases ; and bee-hives also were found where bees 
were gathered together in a certain place within the trenches of the camp ; 
the which place the soothsayers thought good to shut out of the precinct 
of the camp, for to take away the superstitious fear and mistrust men would 
have of it : the which began somewhat to alter Cassius's mind from Epi- 
curus's opinions, and had put the soldiers also in a marvellous fear. — 
Plutarch. 

18 Touching Cassius, Messala reporteth that he supped by himself in his 
tent with a few of his friends, and that all supper-time he looked very sadly, 
and was full of thoughts, although it was against his nature ; and that after 
supper he took him by the hand, and, holding him fast, (in token of kind- 
ness, as his manner was,) told him in Greek : " Messala, I protest unto thee, 
and make thee my witness, that I am compelled against my mind and will 
(as Pompey the Great was) to jeopard the liberty of our country to the 
hazard of a battle. And yet we must be lively, and of good courage, con- 
sidering our good fortune, whom we should wrong too much to mistrust 
her, although we follow evil counsel." Messala writeth, that Cassius hav- 
ing spoken these last words unto him, he bade him farewell, and willed him 
to come to supper to him the next night following, because it was his birth- 
day. — Plutarch. 



160 JULIUS CiESAR. ACT v. 

But, since th' affairs of men rest still incertain, 
Let's reason with 19 the worst that may befall. 
If we do lose this battle, then is this 
The very last time we shall speak together : 
What are you then determined to do ? 

Bru. Even by the rule of that philosophy 
By which I did blame Cato for the death 
Which he did give himself; : — I know not how, 
But I do find it cowardly and vile, 
For fear of what might fall, so to prevent 
The time of life ; 20 — arming myself with patience 
To stay the providence of some high powers 
That govern us below. 

Cass. Then, if we lose this battle, 

You are contented to be led in triumph 
Thorough the streets of Rome ? 

Bru. No, Cassius, no : think not, thou noble Roman, 
That ever Brutus will go bound to Rome ; 
He bears too great a mind. 21 But this same day 

19 To reason with here means to talk or discourse about. The use of to 
reason for to converse or discourse occurs repeatedly. 

20 Prevent is here used in its literal sense of anticipate. — By time is meant 
the full time, the natural period. — To the understanding of this speech, it 
must be observed, that the sense of the words, " arming myself," &c, follows 
next after the words, " which he did give himself." — In this passage, Shake- 
speare was misled by an error in North's version of Plutarch, where we 
have trust instead of trusted. See the next note ; where, instead of" Brutus 
answered him, being yet but a young man, — in the world : ' I trust,' " &c, 
it ought to be, " Brutus answered him: 'Being yet but a young man, — in 
the world, I trusted,' " &c. 

21 The next morning, by break of day, the signal of battle was set out in 
Brutus's and Cassius's camp, which was an arming scarlet coat; and both 
the chieftains spake together in the midst of their armies. There Cassius 
began to speak first, and said : " The gods grant us, O Brutus, that this day 
we may win the field, and ever after to live all the rest of our life quietly one 



SCENE II. JULIUS CAESAR. 161 

Must end that work the Ides of March begun ; 
And whether we shall meet again I know not. 
Therefore our everlasting farewell take : 
For ever, and for ever, farewell, Cassius ! 
If we do meet again, why, we shall smile ; 
If not, why, then this parting was well made. 

Cass. For ever, and for ever, farewell, Brutus ! 
If we do meet again, we'll smile indeed ; 
If not, 'tis true this parting was well made. 

Bru. Why, then lead on. O, that a man might know 
The end of this day's business ere it come ! 
But it sufficeth that the day will end, 
And then the end is known. — Come, ho ! away ! [Exeunt. 



Scene II. — The Same. The Field of Battle. 

Alarum. Enter Brutus and Messala. 

Bru. Ride, ride, Messala, ride, and give these bills 
Unto the legions on the other side : l 

with another. But, sith the gods have so ordained it, that the greatest and 
chiefest things amongst men are most uncertain, and that if the battle fall out 
otherwise to-day than we wish or look for, we shall hardly meet again, what 
art thou determined to do, to fly, or die ? " Brutus answered him, being yet 
but a young man, and not over greatly experienced in the world, " I trust (I 
know not how) a certain rule of philosophy, by the which I did greatly 
blame and reprove Cato for killing himself, as being no lawful nor godly 
act, touching the gods ; nor, concerning men, valiant ; not to give place and 
yield to divine providence, and not constantly and patiently to take whatso- 
ever it pleaseth him to send us, but to draw back and fly : but, being now in 
the midst of the danger, I am of a contrary mind. For, if it be not the will 
of God that this battle fall out fortunate for us, I will look no more for hope, 
neither seek to make any new supply for war again, but will rid me of this 
miserable world, and content me with my fortune." — PLUTARCH. 

1 " The legions on the other side " are those commanded by Cassius ; 
the left wing, in fact, of the joint army of Brutus and Cassius. Brutus wants 



162 JULIUS CAESAR. act v. 

Let them set on at once ; for I perceive 

But cold demeanor in Octavius' wing, 

And sudden push gives them the overthrow. 

Ride, ride, Messala : let them all come down. \_Exeunt. 

Scene III. — Another Part of the Field. 
Alarw?i. Enter Cassius and Titinius. 

Cass. G, look, Titinius, look, the villains fly ! 
Myself have to mine own turn'd enemy : , 
This ensign here of mine was turning back ; 
I slew the coward, and did take it from him. 2 

Tit. O Cassius, Brutus gave the word too early ; 
Who, having some advantage on Octavius, 
Took it too eagerly : his soldiers fell to spoil, 
Whilst we by Antony are all enclosed. 

Enter Pindarus. 

Pin. Fly further off, my lord, fly further off; 
Mark Antony is in your tents, my lord : 
Fly, therefore, noble Cassius, fly far' off. 

Cass. This hill is far enough. — Look, look, Titinius ; 
Are those my tents where I perceive the fire ? 

Tit. They are, my lord.. 

Cass. Titinius, if thou lovest me, 

Mount thou my horse, and hide thy spurs in him, 

Cassius to attack the enemy at the same time that he himself does. In the 
next scene, Messala and his escort are met by Titinius coming from Cas- 
sius. 

2 Ensign was used, as it is still, either for the flag or for the bearer of it: 
here it is used for both at once. It was in killing the cowardly ensign that 
Cassius " to his own turn'd enemy." 



scene in. JULIUS CAESAR. 163 

Till he have brought thee up to yonder troops, 3 
And here again ; that I may rest assured 
Whether yond troops are friend or enemy. 

Tit. I will be here again, even with a thought. \_Exit. 

Cass. Go, Pindarus, get higher on that hill : 4 
My sight was ever thick : regard Titinius, 
And tell me what thou notest about the field. — 

[Pindarus goes up. 
This day I breathed first : time is come round, 
And where I did begin, there shall I end ; 
My life is run his compass. — Sirrah, what news ? 

Pin. \_Above.~\ O my lord ! 

Cass. What news? 

Pin. Titinius is enclosed round about 
With horsemen, that make to him on the spur : 
Yet he spurs on. Now they are almost on him. — 
Now, Titinius ! — Now some 'light. 5 O, he 'lights too : 
He's ta'en ; [Shout.~\ and, hark ! they shout for joy. 

Cass. Come down ; behold no more. — 
O, coward that I am, to live so long, 
To see my best triend ta'en before my face ! — 

Pindarus descends. 

Come hither, sirrah : 

In Parthia did I take thee prisoner ; 

And then I swore thee, saving of thy life, 

That whatsoever I did bid thee do, 

Thou shouldst attempt it. Come now, keep thine oath ; 

3 " Yonder troops " are Messala and his escort coming from Brutus. 

4 Cassius is now on a hill : he therefore means a hill somewhat higher 
than that he is on. — Cassius was, in fact, what we now call near-sighted. 

5 Some alight, or dismount. 



164 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT v. 

Now be a freeman ; and with this good sword, 

That ran through Caesar's bowels, search this bosom. 

Stand not to answer : here, take thou the hilts ; 6 

And, when my face is cover'd, as 'tis now, 

Guide thou the sword. — Caesar, thou art revenged, 

Even with the sword that kill'd thee. 7 \_Dies. 

Pin. So, I am free > yet would not so have been, 
Durst I have done my will. — O Cassius ! 
Far from this country Pindarus shall run, 
Where never Roman shall take note of him. 8 [Exit. 



6 Hilts, plural, for hilt was the common usage in the Poet's time. So too 
with funerals, later in this play. 

7 It was a dagger, not a sword, that Cassius stabbed Caesar with. But 
the same weapon is put for the same owner; a common figure of speech. 

8 Cassius was at length compelled to fly, with a few about him, unto a little 
hill, from whence they might easily see what was done in all the plain : how- 
beit Cassius himself saw nothing, for his sight was very bad, saving that he 
saw (and yet with much ado) how the enemies spoiled his camp before his 
eyes. He also saw a great troop of horsemen, whom Brutus sent to aid 
him, and thought that they were his enemies that followed him ; but yet 
he sent Titinius, one of them that was with him, to go and know what they 
were. Brutus's horsemen saw him coming afar off, whom when they knew 
that he was one of Cassius's chiefest friends, they shouted out for joy; and 
they that were familiarly acquainted with him lighted from their horses, and 
went and embraced him. The rest compassed him in round about on 
horseback, with songs of victory and great rushing of their harness, so that 
they made all the field ring again for joy. But this marred all. For Cassius, 
thinking indeed that Titinius was taken of the enemies, he then spake these 
words : " Desiring too much to live, I have lived to see one of my best friends 
taken, for my sake, before my face." After that, he got into a tent where 
nobody was, and took Pindarus with him, one of his bondsmen whom he 
reserved ever for such a pinch, since the cursed battle of the Parthians, 
where Crassus was slain, though he notwithstanding scaped from that over- 
throw : but then, casting his cloak over his head, and holding out his bare 
neck unto Pindarus, he gave him his head to be stricken off. So the head 
was found severed from the body : but after that time Pindarus was never 
seen more.— PLUTARCH. 



SCENE ill. JULIUS G^SAR. 165 

Re-enter Titinius, with Messala. 

Mess. It is but change, 9 Titinius ; for Octavius 
Is overthrown by noble Brutus' power, 
As Cassius' legions are by Antony. 

Tit. These tidings will well comfort Cassius. 

Mes. Where did you leave him ? 

Tit. All disconsolate, 

With Pindarus his bondman, on this hill. 

Mes. Is not that he that lies upon the ground? 

Tit. He lies not like the living. O my heart ! 

Me s. Is not that he ? 

Tit. No, this was he, Messala, 

But Cassius is no more. — O setting Sun, 
As in thy red rays thou dost sink to night, 
So in his red blood Cassius' day is set ; 
The sun of Rome is set ! Our day is gone ; 
Clouds, dews, and dangers come ; our deeds are done ! 
Mistrust of my success hath done this deed. 

Mes. Mistrust of good success hath done this deed. 
O hateful Error, Melancholy's child ! 
Why dost thou show to the apt thoughts of men 
The things that are not? 10 O Error, soon conceived, 
Thou never comest unto a happy birth, 
But kill'st the mother that engender'd thee ! 

Tit. What, Pindarus ! where art thou, Pindarus ? 

Mes. Seek him, Titinius, whilst I go to meet 
The noble Brutus, thrusting this report 
Into his ears : I may say, thrusting it ; 

9 That is, interchange of victory and defeat. 

10 Cassius is said to have been of a highly choleric or bilious tempera- 
ment ; as such, predisposed to melancholy, and hence apt to be taken with 
imaginary evils, or to construe things to the worst. 



1 66 JULIUS CESAR. ACT V. 

For piercing steel and darts envenomed 
Shall be as welcome to the ears of Brutus 
As tidings of this sight. 

Tit Hie you, Messala, 

And I will seek for Pindarus the while. — \_Exit Messala. 
Why didst thou send me forth, brave Cassius? 
Did I not meet thy friends ? and did not they 
Put on my brows this wreath of victory, 
And bid me give it thee ? Didst thou not hear their shouts ? 
Alas, thou hast misconstrued every thing ! 
But, hold thee, take this garland on thy brow ; 
Thy Brutus bid me give it thee, and I 
Will do his bidding. — Brutus, come apace, 
And see how I regarded Caius Cassius. — 
By your leave, gods : this is a Roman's part : 
Come, Cassius' sword, and find Titinius' heart. 11 [Dies. 

Alarum. Re-enter Messala, with Brutus, young Cato, 
Strato, Volumnius, and Lucilius. 

Bru. Where, where, Messala, doth his body lie ? 
Mes. Lo, yonder, and Titinius mourning it. 
Bru. Titinius' face is upward. 
Cato. He is slain. 

Bru. O Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet ! 
Thy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swords 

11 By-and-by they knew the horsemen that came towards them, and might 
see Titinius crowned with a garland of triumph, who came before with great 
speed unto Cassius. But when he perceived, by the cries and tears of his 
friends which tormented themselves, the misfortune that had' chanced to 
his captain Cassius by mistaking, he drew out his sword, cursing himself a 
thousand times that he had tarried so long, and so slew himself presently 
in the field. Brutus in the meantime came forward still, and understood 
also that Cassius had been overthrown ; but he knew nothing of his death 
till he came very near to his camp. — Plutarch. 



scene in. JULIUS OESAR. 167 

In our own proper entrails. 12 \_Low alarums. 

Cato. Brave Titinius ! 

Look, wher he have not crown'd dead Cassius ! 

Bru. Are yet two Romans living such as these ? — 
Thou last of all the Romans, fare thee well ! 
It is impossible that ever Rome 

Should breed thy fellow. — Friends, I owe more tears 
To this dead man than you shall see me pay. — 
I shall find time, Cassius, I shall find time. — 
Come, therefore, and to Thassos send his body : 
His funerals shall not be in our camp, 
Lest it discomfort us. 13 — Lucilius, come; — 
And come, young Cato ; — let us to the field. — 
Labeo and Flavius, 14 set our battles on : — 
'Tis three o'clock ; and, Romans, yet ere night 
We shall try fortune in a second fight. 15 \_Exeunt. 

m 

12 Brutus here strikes the proper key-note of the play. The matter is 
well stated by Mr. Froude : " The murderers of Caesar, and those who had 
either instigated them secretly or applauded them afterwards, were included 
in a proscription list, drawn by retributive justice on the model of Sulla's. 
Such of them as were in Italy were immediately killed. Those in the prov- 
inces, as if with the curse of Cain upon their heads, came one by one to 
miserable ends. In three years the tyrannicides of the Ides of March, with 
their aiders and abettors, were all dead ; some killed in battle, some in 
prison, some dying by their own hand." 

13 So when he was come thither, after he had lamented the death of Cas- 
sius, calling him the last of all the Romans, being unpossible that Rome 
should eve/ breed again so noble and valiant a man as he, he caused his 
body to be buried, and sent it to the city of Thassos, fearing lest his funerals 
within his camp should cause great disorder. — PLUTARCH. 

14 These two men are not named among the persons of the drama, be- 
cause they speak nothing. Labeo was one of the stabbers of Caesar; and it 
is related that when he saw that all was lost, having dug his own grave, he 
enfranchised a slave, and then thrust a weapon into his hand to kill him. 

15 The Poet very judiciously represents both battles as occurring the 
same day. They were in fact separated by an interval of twenty days. 



1 68 JULIUS C^SAR. ACT V. 

Scene IV. — Another Part of the Field. 

Alaruni. Enter, fighting, Soldiers of both Armies ; then 
Brutus, Young Cato, Lucilius, and Others. 

Bru. Yet, countrymen, O, yet hold up your heads ! 

Cato. What bastard doth not ? l Who will go with me ? 
I will proclaim my name about the field : — 
I am the son of Marcus Cato, ho ! 
A foe to tyrants, and my country's friend ; 
I am the son of Marcus Cato, ho ! [ Charges the Enemy. 

Bru. And I am Brutus, Marcus Brutus, I ; 
Brutus, my country's friend ; know me for Brutus. 

\_Exit, charging the Enemy. Cato is 
overpowered, and falls. 

Lucil. O young and noble Cato, art thou down ? 
Why, now thou diest as bravely as Titinius ; 
And mayst be honour'd, being Cato's son. 2 

i Sold. Yield, or thou diest. 

Lucil. Only I yield to die : 

There is so much that thou wilt kill me straight ; 

[ Offering money. 
Kill Brutus, and be honour'd in his death. 

i Sold. We must not. A noble prisoner ! 

2 Sold. Room, ho ! Tell Antony, Brutus is ta'en. 

i Sold. I'll tell the news. Here comes the General. — 

1 Meaning, of course, " Who is such a bastard as not to do so ?"" For 
another like expression, see page 138, note 4. 

2 There was the son of Marcus Cato slain, valiantly fighting among the 
lusty youth. For notwithstanding that he was very weary and over-harried, 
yet would he not therefore fly, but manfully fighting and laying about him, 
telling aloud his name, and also his father's name, at length he was beaten 
down amongst many other dead bodies of his enemies which he had slain 
round about him. — PLUTARCH. 



scene iv. JULIUS OESAR. 1 69 

Enter Antony. 

Brutus is ta'en, Brutus is ta'en, my lord. 

Ant. Where is he? 

Lucil. Safe, Antony ; Brutus is safe enough : 
I dare assure thee that no enemy 
Shall ever take alive the noble Brutus : 
The gods defend him from so great a shame ! 
When you do find him, or alive or dead, 
He will be found like Brutus, like himself. 

Ant. This is not Brutus, friend ; but, I assure you, 
A prize no less in worth. Keep this man safe, 
Give him all kindness : I had rather have 
Such men my friends than enemies. 3 Go on, 
And see wher Brutus be alive or dead ; 
And bring us word unto Octavius' tent 
How every thing is chanced. \Exeunt. 

3 There was one of Brutus's friends called Lucilius, who seeing a troop 
of barbarous men going right against Brutus, determined to stay them with 
the hazard of his life, and, being left behind, told them that he was Brutus ; 
and, because they should believe him, he prayed them to bring him to An- 
tonius, for he said he was afraid of Csesar, and that he did trust Antonius 
better. These barbarous men, being very glad of this good hap, carried him 
in the night, and sent some before unto Antonius to tell him of their com- 
ing. He was marvellous glad of it, and went out to meet them that brought 
him. When they came near together, Antonius stayed awhile, bethinking 
himself how he should use Brutus. In the meantime Lucilius was brought 
to him, who stoutly with a bold countenance said : " Antonius, I dare assure 
thee, that no enemy hath taken or shall take Marcus Brutus alive, and I be- 
seech God keep him from that fortune : for wheresoever he be found, alive 
or dead, he will be found like himself. And now, for myself, I am come 
unto thee, having deceived these men of arms here, bearing them down that 
I was Brutus, and do not refuse to suffer any torment thou wilt put me to." 
Lucilius's words made them all amazed that heard him. Antonius on the 
other side, looking upon all them that had brought him, said unto them : 
" My companions, I think ye are sorry you have failed of your purpose, and 



1 70 JULIUS CJESAR. act v. 

Scene V. — Another Part of the Field. 
Enter Brutus, Dardanius, Clitus, Strato, and Volumnius. 

Bru. Come, poor remains of friends, rest on this rock. 

Cli. Statilius show'd the torch-light ; but, my lord, 
He came not back : he is or ta'en or slain. 1 

Bru. Sit thee down, Clitus : slaying is the word ; 
It is a deed in fashion. 2 Hark thee, Clitus. [ Whispering. 

that you think this man hath done you great wrong ; but I assure you, you 
have taken a better booty than that you followed. For instead of an enemy 
you have brought me a friend; and, for my part, if you had brought me 
Brutus alive, truly I cannot tell what I should have done to him. For I had 
rather have such men my friends, as this man here, than mine enemies:" 
Then he embraced Lucilius, and at that time delivered him to one of his 
friends in custody ; and Lucilius ever after served him faithfully, even to his 
death.— Plutarch. 

1 Brutus thought that there was no great number of men slain in battle ; 
and, to know the truth of it, there was one called Statilius that promised to 
go through his enemies, for otherwise it was impossible to go see their 
camp ; and from thence, if all were well, that he would lift up a torch-light 
in the air, and then return again with speed to him. The torch-light was 
lift up as he had promised, for Statilius went thither. Now, Brutus seeing 
Statilius tarry long after that, and that he came not again, he said, "If Sta- 
tilius be alive, he will come again." But his evil fortune was such that, as 
he came back, he lighted in his enemies' hands and was slain. — PLU- 
TARCH. 

2 The philosopher indeed renounced all confidence in his own principles. 
He had adopted them from reading or imitation ; they were not the natural 
growth of instinct or genuine reflection ; and, as may easily happen in such 
a case, his faith in them failed when they were tested by adversity. As long 
as there seemed a chance that the godlike stroke would be justified by suc- 
cess, Brutus claimed the glory of maintaining a righteous cause ; but, when 
all hope fled, he could take leave of philosophy and life together, and ex- 
claim, I once dreamed that virtue was a thing ; I find her only a name, and 
the mere slave of fortune. He had blamed Cato for flying from misery by 
self-murder ; but he learnt to justify the same desperate act when he con- 
templated committing it himself. — Merivale. 



scene v. JULIUS CAESAR. 171 

Cli. What, I, my lord ? No, not for all the world. 

Bru. Peace then ! no words. 

Cli. I'll rather kill myself. 

Bru. Hark thee, Dardanius. [ Whispers him. 

Dar.. Shall I do such a deed? 

Cli. O Dardanius ! 

Dar. O Clitus ! 

Cli. What ill request did Brutus make to thee ? 

Dar. To kill him, Clitus. Look, he meditates. 

Cli. Now is that noble vessel full of grief, 
That it runs over even at his eyes. 

Bru. Come hither, good Volumnius ; list a word. 

Vol. What says my lord ? 

Bru. Why, this, Volumnius : 

The ghost of Caesar hath appear'd to me 
Two several times by night ; at Sardis once, 
And, this last night, here in Philippi fields : 
I know my hour is come. 3 

Vol. Not so, my lord. 

Bru. Nay, I am sure it is, Volumnius. 
Thou see'st the world, Volumnius, how it goes ; 
Our enemies have beat us to the pit : [Low alarums. 

It is more worthy to leap in ourselves 
Than tarry till they push us. Good Volumnius, 

3 So the Poet read in Plutarch : " The second battle being at hand, this 
spirit appeared again unto him, but spake never a word. Thereupon Bru- 
tus, knowing that he should die, did put himself to all hazard in battle, but 
yet fighting could not be slain." — Merivale has a strong sentence on this 
point : " The legend that when preparing for the encounter with the trium- 
virs he was visited by the ghost of Caesar, which summoned him to meet 
again at Philippi, marks the conviction of the ancients that in the crisis of 
his fate he was stung by guilty remorse, and haunted by the presentiment 
of final retribution." 



172 JULIUS C^SAR. ACT V. 

Thou know'st that we two went to school together : 
Even for that our love of old, I pr'ythee, 
Hold thou my sword-hilts, whilst I run on it. 

Vol. That's not an office for a friend, my lord. 

[Alarums still. 

Cli. Fly, fly, my lord ! there is no tarrying here. 

Bru. Farewell to you; — and you; — and you, Volum- 
nius. — 
Strato, thou hast been all this while asleep ; 
Farewell to thee, too, Strato. — Countrymen, 
My heart doth joy, that yet in all my life 
I found no man but he was true to me. 
I shall have glory by this losing day, 
More than Octavius and Mark Antony 
By their vile conquest shall attain unto. 
So, fare you well at once ; for Brutus' tongue 
Hath almost ended his life's history : 
Night hangs upon mine eyes ; my bones would rest, 
That have but labour'd to attain this hour. 

\_Alaru?ns. Cry within, Fly, fly, fly ! 

Cli. Fly, my lord, fly ! 

Bru. Hence ! I will follow. — 

[Exeunt Clit., Dardan., and Volum. 
I pr'ythee, Strato, stay thou by thy lord : 
Thou art a fellow of a good respect ; 4 
Thy life hath had some smack of honour in it : 
Hold, then, my sword, and turn away thy face, 
While I do run upon it. Wilt thou, Strato ? 

Stra. Give me your hand first : fare you well, my lord. 

Bru. Farewell, good Strato. — Caesar, now be still : 

4 A fellow well esteemed, or of good reputation. See page 48, note 17. 



scene v. JULIUS CiESAR. 1 73 

I kill'd not thee with half so good a will. 5 

\He runs on his sword, and dies. 

Alarum. Retreat. Enter Octavius, Antony, Messala, Lu- 
cilius, and Army. 

Oct. What man is that ? 

Mes. My master's man. — Strato, where is thy master ? 

Stra. Free from the bondage you are in, Messala : 
The conquerors can but make a fire of him ; 
For Brutus only overcame himself, 
And no man else hath honour by his death. 

Lucil. So Brutus should be found. — I thank thee, Brutus, 

5 Now the night being far spent, Brutus as he sat bowed towards Clitus, 
one of his men, and told him somewhat in his ear : the other answered him 
not, but fell a-weeping. Thereupon he proved Dardanius, and said some- 
what also to him : at length he came to Volumnius himself, and, speaking 
to him in Greek, prayed him for the studies' sake which brought them 
acquainted together, that he would help him to put his hand to his sword, 
to thrust it in him to kill him. Volumnius denied his request, and so did 
many others ; and, amongst the rest, one of them said, there was no tarrying 
for them there, but that they must needs fly. Then Brutus, rising up, " We 
must fly indeed," said he, " but it must be with our hands, not with our 
feet." Then, taking every man by the hand, he said these words unto them 
with a cheerful countenance : " It rejoiceth my heart, that not one of my 
friends hath failed me at my need, and I do not complain of my fortune, 
but only for my country's sake : for, as for me, I think myself happier than 
they that have overcome, considering that I leave a- perpetual fame of virtue 
and honesty, the which our enemies the conquerors shall never attain unto 
by force or money ; neither can let their posterity to say that they, being 
naughty and unjust men, have slain good men, to usurp tyrannical power 
not pertaining to them." Having so said, he prayed every man to shift for 
himself, and then he went a little aside with two or three only, among the 
which Strato was one, with whom he came first acquainted by the study of 
rhetoric. He came as near him as he could, and taking his sword by the 
hilt with both his hands, and falling down upon the point of it, ran himselt 
through. Others say that not he, but Strato, at his request, held the sword 
in his hand, and turned his head aside, and that Brutus fell down upon it, 
and so ran himself through, and died presently. — Plutarch, 



174 JULIUS C^SAR. act v. 

That thou hast proved Lucilius' saying true. 

Oct. All that served Brutus, I will entertain them. 6 — 
Fellow, wilt thou bestow thy time with me ? 

Stra. Ay, if Messala will prefer me to you. 7 

Oct. Do so, good Messala. 

Mes. How died my master, Strato ? 

Stra. I held the sword, and he did run on it. 

Mes. Octavius, then take him to follow thee, 
That did the latest service to my master. 

Ant. This was the noblest Roman of them all : 
All the conspirators, save only he, 
Did that they did in envy of great Caesar ; 
He only, in a general-honest thought 
And common good to all, 8 made one of them. 
His life was gentle ; and the elements 
So mix'd in him, 9 that Nature might stand up 
And say to all the world, This was a man I 

Oct. According to his virtue let us use him, 
With all respect and rites of burial. 
Within my tent his bones to-night shall lie, 
Most like a soldier, order'd honourably. — 
So, call the field to rest ; and let's away, 
To part the glories of this happy day. [Exeunt. 

6 " I will take them into my service." So in The Two Gentlemen, ii. 4 : 
" Sweet lady, entertain him for your servant." 

7 Prefer was a common term for recommending a servant. 

8 The force of in is, properly, continued over common good. 

9 Referring to the old doctrine of the four elements, as they were called, 
earth, water, air, and fire, the right mixing and. tempering of which was sup- 
posed to be the principle of all excellence in Nature. The Poet has a num- 
ber of allusions to the doctrine, which was a commonplace of the time. The 
sense of the word elements has so changed as to make the passage just as 
true to the ideas of our time, as it was to those of three hundred years ago. 
A rather curious fact. 



THE FUNERAL OF CAESAR.* 



THE Dictator had bequeathed to each citizen the sum 
of three hundred sesterces, or rather less than three 
pounds sterling. The money itself, indeed, was not forth- 
coming ; for Antonius had already disposed of the whole 
treasure which had fallen into his hands. But Octavius had 
not yet arrived to discharge his patron's legacies ; many 
formalities and some chances lay between the public avowal 
of these generous intentions and the claim for their actual 
fulfilment ; and Antonius in the meantime might turn to his 
own account the grateful acknowledgment of the people for 
a largess they might never be destined to enjoy. The bare 
recital of Caesar's testament operated on their feelings most 
favourably to his interests. Now for the first time they were 
fully roused to a sense of their benefactor's wrongs. Now 
for the first time the black ingratitude of Decimus and the 
others, his confidants and his assassins, stood revealed in its 
hideous deformity. The sense of personal loss stifled every 

* The paragraphs that follow under this heading are from Merivale's 
History of the Romans under the Empire, Chapter xxiii. Taken all to- 
gether, they form, to my judgment, one of the finest pieces of historical 
portraiture that I know of in the language. And the passage illustrates so 
happily the most interesting scene of the foregoing drama, that no apology 
seems needful for reproducing it here. I have often read it, with good 
effect, to my own Shakespeare classes in connection with that scene. 

175 



176 JULIUS CAESAR. 

specious argument that could be advanced to extenuate the 
crime. The vindication of the laws, the assertion of liberty, 
the overthrow of a tyrant and a dynasty of tyrants, all sank at 
once before the paramount iniquity of destroying the only 
substantial benefactor the Roman people had ever had. Many 
a magistrate or conqueror indeed had lavished shows and 
festivals upon them ; the city owed its noblest ornaments to 
the rivalry of suitors for popularity ; but these were candi- 
dates for honours and distinctions, and had all a personal 
object to serve ; while the bequest of the murdered Julius 
was deemed an act of pure generosity, for the dead can have 
no selfish interests. 

The heralds proclaimed throughout the city the appointed 
place and hour of the obsequies. A funeral pyre was con- 
structed in the Field of Mars, close to the spot where lay the 
ashes of Julia ; for the laws forbade cremation within the 
walls ; and the laws, enacted for purposes of health, were 
reinforced by feelings of superstition. But the funeral ora- 
tion was to be pronounced in the Forum, and a temporary 
chapel, open on every side, modelled, it is said, after the 
temple of Venus the Ancestress, was erected before the ros- 
tra, and gorgeously gilded, for the reception of the body. 
The bier was a couch inlaid with ivory, and strewn with 
vestments of gold and purple. At its head was suspended, 
in the fashion of a warrior's trophy, the toga in which the 
Dictator had been slain, pierced through and through by the 
assassins' daggers. Calpurnius Piso walked at the head of 
the procession, as chief mourner ; the body was borne by the 
highest magistrates and most dignified personages of the 
State ; the people were invited to make oblations for the 
pyre, of garments, arms, trinkets, and spices. So great was 
the concourse of the offerers, that the order in which they 



THE FUNERAL OF CAESAR. 1 77 

were appointed to present themselves could not be preserved, 
but every one was allowed to approach the spot by whatever 
route he chose from every corner of the city. When the 
mangled remains were deposited in their place, they were 
concealed from the gaze of the multitude ; but in their stead 
a waxen effigy was raised aloft, and turned about by ma- 
chinery in every direction ; and the people could distinctly 
mark the three-and-twenty wounds represented faithfully 
upon it. Dramatic shows formed, as usual, a part of the 
ceremony. Passages from the Electro, of Atillius, and the 
Contest for the Anns of Achilles, a celebrated piece of 
Pacuvius, were enacted on the occasion. The murder of 
Agamemnon, and the requital of Ajax, who complained that 
in saving the Greeks he had saved his own assassins, fur- 
nished pungent allusions to the circumstances of the time, 
and moved the sensibilities of an inflammable populace. 

While the feelings of the citizens were thus melting with 
compassion or glowing with resentment, Antonius came for- 
ward, as the first magistrate of the republic, to deliver the 
funeral eulogy due to the mighty dead. Historians and 
poets have felt the intense interest of the position he at that 
moment occupied, and have vied with each other in delineat- 
ing with the nicest touches the adroitness he displayed in guid- 
ing the passions of his audience. Suetonius indeed asserts 
that he added few words of his own to the bare recital of the 
decrees of the Senate, by which every honour, human and 
divine, had been heaped upon Caesar, and of the oath by 
which his destined assassins had bound themselves to his de- 
fence. But Cicero tells a different story. He speaks with 
bitter indignation of the praises, the commiseration, and the 
inflammatory appeals, which he interwove with the address. 
With such contemporary authority before us, we may believe 



178 JULIUS CAESAR. 

that the speech reported by Appian is no rhetorical fiction, 
but a fair representation, both in manner and substance, of 
the actual harangue. The most exquisite scene in the truest 
of all Shakespeare's historical delineations adds little, except 
the charm of verse and the vividness of dramatic action, to 
the graphic painting of the original record. 

This famous speech was in fact a consummate piece of 
dramatic art. The eloquence of Antonius was less moving 
than the gestures which enforced it, and the accessory cir- 
cumstances which he enlisted to plead on his behalf. He 
addressed himself to the eyes, no less than to the ears of his 
audience. He disclaimed the position of a panegyrist : his 
friendship with the deceased might render his testimony 
suspected. He was, indeed, unworthy to praise Caesar : the 
voice of the people alone could pronounce his befitting 
eulogy. He produced the Acts of the Senate, and of the 
faction by whose hands Caesar had fallen, as the vouchers of 
his assertions. These he recited with a voice tremulous with 
grief, and a countenance struggling with emotions. He read 
the decrees which had within a twelvemonth heaped hon- 
ours upon Caesar, and which declared his person inviolable, 
his authority supreme, and himself the chief and father of 
his country. Were these honours excessive or dangerous to 
the State, the Senate had bestowed them : did they even 
trench upon the attributes of the gods, the pontiffs had sanc- 
tioned them. And when he came to the words consecrated, 
inviolable, father of his country, the orator pointed with 
artful irony to the bleeding and lifeless corpse, which neither 
laws nor oaths had shielded from outrage. He paused, and 
the dramatic chorus sent forth some ancient wail, such as 
ages before had been consecrated to the sorrows of heroes, 
who like Caesar had been kings of men, and of Houses which 
like the Julian had sprung from gods and goddesses. 



THE FUNERAL OF C^SAR. 179 

Then, from these examples of high fortune and its tragic 
issues, he passed on to recite the solemn oath by which the 
Senate, the nobles, and among them the conspirators them- 
selves, had devoted their hearts and hands to their hero's 
defence ; and thereupon, turning with glowing emotion 
towards the temple of Jupiter, conspicuous on the Capitol, 
he exclaimed : " And I, for my part, am prepared to main- 
tain my vow, to avenge the victim I could not save." Such 
words from the chief magistrate of the State were deeply 
impressive. The Senators scowled and murmured. Anto- 
nius pretended to check his impetuosity and address him- 
self to soothing their alarm. After all, he said, it was not 
the work of men, it was the judgment of the gods. Caesar 
was too great, too noble, too far above the race of men, too 
nigh to the nature of the immortals, to be overthrown by 
any power but that of divinity itself. " Let us bow," he ex- 
claimed, " to the stroke as mortal men. Let us bury the 
past in oblivion. Let us bear away these venerable remains 
to the abodes of the blessed, with due lamentations and 
deserved eulogies ! " 

With these words the consummate actor girt his robes 
closely around him, and striding to the bier, with his head 
inclined before it, muttered a hymn to the body, as to the 
image of a god. In rapid verse or solemn modulated prose 
he chanted the mighty deeds and glories of the deceased, 
the trophies he had won, the triumphs he had led, the riches 
he had poured into the treasury. " Thou, Csesar, alone wast 
never worsted in battle. Thou alone hast avenged our de- 
feats and wiped away our disgraces. By thee the insults of 
three hundred years stand requited. Before thee has fallen the 
hereditary foe who burned the city of our fathers." So did 
the Potitii and Pinarii recite their hymns to Hercules : so did 



l8o JULIUS CESAR. 

the frantic hierophant sing the praises of Apollo. The flamen 
of Julius seemed instinct with the inspiration of the altar and 
the tripod, while he breathed the fanatic devotion of the 
ancient faith. 

The blood-smeared image was turned this way and that 
for all eyes to gaze upon ; and, as it seemed to writhe in the 
agonies of death, the groans of men and the shrieks of 
women drowned the plaintive accents of the speaker. Sud- 
denly Antonius raised the mangled garment which hung over 
the body itself, and waving it before the people disclosed the 
rents of the murderers' daggers. The excitement of the 
populace now became uncontrollable. Religious enthusiasm 
fanned the flame of personal sympathy. They forbade the 
body to be carried to the Field of Mars for cremation. Some 
pointed to the temple of Jupiter, where the effigy of the demi- 
god had been enthroned in front of the deity himself, and 
demanded that it should be burnt in the holy shrine, and its 
ashes deposited among its kindred divinities. The priests 
stepped forward to avert this profanation ; and it was then 
proposed to consume the body in the Pompeian Curia, 
whence the mighty spirit had winged its- flight to the celes- 
tial mansions. 

Meanwhile chairs, benches, and tables had been snatched 
from the adjacent buildings, a heap of fuel was raised before 
the door of the pontifical mansion in the Forum, and the 
body snatched by tumultuary hands was cast upon it in a 
frenzy of excitement. Two young men, girt with swords, and 
javelin in hand, were seen to apply the torch. Such a vision 
had appeared in ancient times in the heat of battle. Castor 
and Pollux, it was believed, had descended more than once 
in human form to save the republic. A divine sanction 
was thus given to the deed : every scruple was overruled ; 



CESAR AND THE CONSPIRATORS. 181 

and it was resolved to consume the hero's remains in the 
heart of his own city. The people continued to pile up 
branches and brushwood ; the musicians and players added 
their costly garments to the heap, the veterans their arms, 
the matrons their ornaments ; even the trinkets which adorned 
the children's frocks were torn off, and offered in the blazing 
conflagration. 

Caesar was beloved by the Romans : he was not less dear 
to the foreigners who owed so much to his ascendency, and 
had anticipated so much more. Gauls, Iberians, Africans, 
and Orientals, crowded in successive groups around the pyre, 
and gave vent to the sense of their common misfortune. 
Among them the Jews were eminently conspicuous. Caesar 
was the only Roman who had respected their feelings, and 
assured them of his sympathy. Many of this people con- 
tinued for several nights to assemble with sorrow and resent- 
ment on the spot, and uttered another funeral dirge over the 
blighted hopes of their nation. 



Csesar and the Conspirators.* 

Sixty Senators, in all, were parties to the immediate conspiracy. 
Of these, nine tenths were members of the old faction whom Caesar 
had pardoned, and who, of all his acts, resented most that he 

* The following pages are from the last three chapters of Mr. J. A. 
Froude's new book entitled Ccesar : A Sketch. I am far from concurring 
always, or even generally, in the accomplished author's opinions ; and his 
style, though eminently readable, lacks, I must think, something of the 
calmness and candour proper to historic writing : but what he says of 
Caesar and his stabbers is, to my sense, no less true and just in matter than 
fresh, vigorous, and tasteful in manner,. The surpassing greatness both of 
Caesar himself and of the space he occupies in history will, I trust, be held 
a sufficient reason for giving the matter a place in this volume. 



1 82 JULIUS CESAR. 

had been able to pardon them. Their motives were the ambition 
of their order and personal hatred of Caesar : but they persuaded 
themselves that they were animated by patriotism ; and as, in 
their hands, the Republic had been a mockery of liberty, so they 
aimed at restoring it by a mock tyrannicide. Their oaths and 
their professions were nothing to them. If they were entitled to 
kill Caesar, they were entitled equally to deceive him. No stronger 
evidence is needed of the demoralization of the Roman Senate 
than the completeness with which they were able to disguise from 
themselves the baseness of their treachery. One man only they 
were able to attract into cooperation who had a reputation for 
honesty, and could be conceived, without absurdity, to be ani- 
mated by a disinterested purpose. 

Marcus Brutus was the son of Cato's sister Servilia ; and 
although, under the influence of his' uncle, he had taken the Sen- 
ate's side in the war, he had accepted afterwards not pardon only 
from Caesar, but favours of many kinds, for which he had pro- 
fessed, and probably felt, some real gratitude. He had married 
Cato's daughter, Portia, and, on Cato's death had published a 
eulogy upon him. Caesar left him free to think and write what 
he pleased. He had made him Praetor ; he had nominated him 
to the governorship of Macedonia. Brutus was perhaps the only 
member of the senatorial party in whom Caesar felt genuine con- 
fidence. His known integrity, and Caesar's acknowledged regard 
for him made his accession to the conspiracy an object of partic- 
ular importance. The name of Brutus would be a guaranty to 
the people of rectitude of intention. Brutus, as the world went, 
was of more than average honesty. He had sworn to be faithful 
to Caesar, as the rest had sworn; and an oath with him was not 
a thing to be emotionalized away : but he was a fanatical repub- 
lican, a man of gloomy habits, given to dreams and omens, and 
easily liable to be influenced by appeals to visionary feelings. 
Caius Cassius, his brother-in-law, was employed to work upon 
him. Cassius, too, was Praetor that year, having been also nomi- 
nated to office by Caesar. He knew Brutus, he knew where and 
how to move him. He reminded him of the great traditions of 



CJESAR AND THE CONSPIRATORS. 183 

his name. A Brutus had delivered Rome from the Tarquins. 
The blood of a Brutus was consecrated to liberty. This, too, 
was mockery : Brutus, who expelled the Tarquins, had put his 
sons to death, and died childless : Marcus Brutus came of good 
plebeian family, with no glories of tyrannicide about them ; but 
the imaginary genealogy suited well with the spurious heroics 
which veiled the motives of Caesar's murderers. 

Brutus, once wrought upon, became with Cassius the most 
ardent in the cause, which assumed the aspect to him of a sacred 
duty. Behind them were the crowd of Senators of the familiar 
faction, and others worse than they, who had not even the excuse 
of having been partisans of the beaten cause ; men who had 
fought at Caesar's side till the war was over, and believed, like 
Labienus, that to them Caesar owed his fortune. One of these 
was Trebonius, who had misbehaved himself in Spain, and was 
smarting under the recollection of his own failures. Trebonius 
had been named by Caesar for a future consulship ; but a distant 
reward was too little for him. Another and yet a baser traitor 
was Decimus Brutus, whom Caesar valued and trusted beyond all 
his officers ; whom he had selected as guardian for Octavius, and 
had noticed, as was seen afterwards, with special affection in his 
will. The services of these men were invaluable to the conspira- 
tors on account of their influence with the army. Decimus 
Brutus, like Labienus, had enriched himself in Caesar's cam- 
paigns, and had amassed near half a million of English money. 

So composed was this memorable band, to whom was to fall 
the bad distinction of completing the ruin of the senatorial rule. 
Caesar would have spared something of it ; enough, perhaps, to 
have thrown up shoots again as soon as he had himself passed 
away in the common course of nature. By combining in a focus 
the most hateful characteristics of the order, by revolting the 
moral instincts of mankind by ingratitude and treachery, they 
stripped their cause of the false glamour which they hoped to 
throw over it. The profligacy and avarice, the cynical disregard 
of obligation, which had marked the Senate's supremacy for a 
century, had exhibited abundantly their unfitness for the high 



184 JULIUS CAESAR. 

functions which had descended to them ; but custom, and natural 
tenderness for a form of government, the past history of which 
had been so glorious, might have continued still to shield them 
from the penalty of their iniquities. The murder of Caesar filled 
the measure of their crimes, and gave the last and necessary im- 
pulse to the closing act of the revolution. 

Caesar was dead. But Caesar still lived. " It was not possible 
that the grave should hold him." The people said that he was 
a god, and had gone back to Heaven, where his star had been 
seen ascending ; his spirit remained on Earth, and the vain blows 
of the assassins had been but " malicious mockery. 11 " We have 
killed the king, 11 exclaimed Cicero in the bitterness of his disen- 
chantment, " but the kingdom is with us still " : "we have taken 
away the tyrant ; the tyranny survives. 11 

Caesar had not overthrown the oligarchy : their own incapacity, 
their own selfishness, their own baseness, had overthrown them. 
Caesar had been but the reluctant instrument of the Power which 
metes out to men the inevitable penalties of their own misdeeds. 
They had dreamt that the Constitution was a living force which 
would revive of itself as soon as its enemy was gone. They did 
not know that it was dead already, and that they had themselves 
destroyed it. The Constitution was but an agreement by which 
the Roman people had consented to abide for their common good. 
It had ceased to be for the common good. The experience of 
fifty miserable years had proved that it meant the supremacy of 
the rich, maintained by the bought votes of demoralized electors. 
The soil of Italy, the industry and happiness of tens of millions 
of mankind, from the Rhine to the Euphrates, had been the spoil 
of five hundred families and their relatives and dependents, of 
men whose occupation was luxury, and whose appetites were for 
monstrous pleasures. The self-respect of reasonable men could 
no longer tolerate such a rule in Italy or out of it. 

In killing Caesar the Optimates had been as foolish as they 
were treacherous ; for Caesars efforts had been to reform the 
Constitution, not to abolish it. The Civil War had risen from 



PERSONAL TRAITS OF CAESAR. 185 

their dread of his second consulship, which they had feared would 
make an end of their corruptions ; and that the Constitution 
should be purged of the poison in its veins, was the sole condition 
on which its continuance was possible. The obstinacy, the 
ferocity, the treachery of the aristocracy had compelled Caesar to 
crush them ; and the more desperate their struggles, the more 
absolute the necessity became. But he alone could have restored 
as much of popular liberty as was consistent with the responsi- 
bilities of such a government as the Empire required. In Caesar 
alone' were combined the intellect and the power necessary for 
such a work: they had killed him, and in doing so had passed 
final sentence on themselves. Not as realities any more, but as 
harmless phantoms, the forms of the old Republic were hence- 
forth to persist. 

Personal Traits of Caesar. 

In person Caesar was tall and slight. His features were more 
refined than was usual in Roman faces ; the forehead was wide 
and high, the nose large and thin, the lips full, the eyes dark gray 
like an eagle's, the neck extremely thick and sinewy. His com- 
plexion was pale. His beard and moustache were kept carefully 
shaved. His hair was short and naturally scanty, falling off 
towards the end of his life, and leaving him partially bald. His 
voice, especially when he spoke in public, was high and shrill. 
His health was uniformly strong until his last year, when he be- 
came subject to epileptic fits. He was a great bather, and scru- 
pulously clean in all his habits ; abstemious *in his food, and 
careless in what it consisted ; rarely or never touching wine, and 
noting sobriety as the highest of qualities, when describing any 
new people. He was an athlete in early life, admirable in all 
manly exercises, and especially in riding. In Gaul he rode a 
remarkable horse, which he had bred himself, and which would 
let no one but Caesar mount him. From his boyhood it was 
observed that he was the truest of friends, that he avoided quar- 
rels, and was most easily appeased when offended. In manner 



1 86 JULIUS C^SAR. 

he was quiet and gentlemanlike, with the natural courtesy of high 
breeding. On an occasion when he was dining somewhere, the 
other guests found the oil too rancid for them : Caesar took it 
without remark, to spare his entertainer's feelings. When on a 
journey through a forest with his friend Oppius, he came one 
night to a hut where there was a single bed. Oppius being 
unwell, Caesar gave it up to him, and slept on the ground. 

Caesar as a Statesman. 

Like Cicero, Caesar entered public life at the bar. He belonged 
by birth to the popular party, but he showed no disposition, like 
the Gracchi, to plunge into political agitation. His aims were 
practical. He made war only upon injustice and oppression ; 
and, when he commenced as a pleader, he was noted for the 
energy with which he protected a client whom he believed to 
have been wronged. When he rose into the Senate, his powers 
as a speaker became strikingly remarkable. Cicero, who often 
heard him, and was not a favourable judge, said that there was a 
pregnancy in his sentences and a dignity in his manner which no 
orator in Rome could approach. But he never spoke to court 
popularity : his aim from first to last was better government, the 
prevention of bribery and extortion, and the distribution among 
deserving citizens of some portion of the public land which the 
rich were stealing. The Julian laws, which excited the indigna- 
tion of the aristocracy, had no other objects than these ; and had 
they been observed they would have saved the Constitution. 
The purpose of government he conceived to be the execution of 
justice ; and a constitutional liberty under which justice was made 
impossible did not appear to him to be liberty at all. 

Caesar, it was observed, when any thing was to be done, selected 
the man who was best able to do it, not caring particularly who 
or what he might be in other respects. To this faculty of dis- 
cerning and choosing fit persons to execute his orders may be 
ascribed the extraordinary success of his own provincial adminis- 
tration, the enthusiasm which was felt for him in the North of 



CJESAR IN WAR. 1 87 

Italy, and the perfect quiet of Gaul after the completion of the 
conquest. Caesar did not crush the Gauls under the weight of 
Italy. He took the best of them into the Roman service, pro- 
moted them, led them to associate the interests of the Empire 
with their personal advancement and the prosperity of their own 
people. No act of Caesar's showed more sagacity than the intro- 
duction of Gallic nobles into the Senate ; none was more bitter 
to the Scipios and Metelli, who were compelled to share their 
august privileges with these despised barbarians. 

Caesar in War. 

It was by accident that Caesar took up the profession of a sol- 
dier ; yet perhaps no commander who ever lived showed greater 
military genius. The conquest of Gaul was effected by a force 
numerically insignificant, which was worked with the precision 
of a machine. The variety of uses to which it was capable of 
being turned implied, in the first place, extraordinary forethought 
in the selection of materials. Men whose nominal duty was 
merely to fight were engineers, architects, mechanics of the 
highest order. In a few hours they could extemporize an im- 
pregnable fortress on an open hillside. They bridged the Rhine 
in a week. They built a fleet in a month. The legions at Alesia 
held twice their number pinned within their works, while they 
kept at bay the whole force of insurgent Gaul, entirely by scien- 
tific superiority. 

The machine, which was thus perfect, was composed of human 
beings who required supplies of tools, and arms, and clothes, 
and food, and shelter ; and for all these it depended on the fore- 
thought of its commander. Maps there were none. Countries 
entirely unknown had to be surveyed ; routes had to be laid out ; 
the depths and courses of rivers, the character of mountain passes, 
had all to be ascertained. Allies had to be found among tribes 
as yet unheard of. Countless contingent difficulties had to be 
provided for, many of which must necessarily arise, though the 
exact nature of them could not be anticipated. 



1 88 JULIUS CESAR. 

When room for accidents is left open, accidents do not fail to 
be heard of. But Caesar was never defeated when personally 
present, save once at Gergovia, and once at Durazzo : the failure 
at Gergovia was caused by the revolt of the ^Edui ; and the man- 
ner in which the failure at Durazzo was retrieved showed Caesar's 
greatness more than the most brilliant of his victories. He was 
rash, but with a calculated rashness, which the event never failed 
to justify. His greatest successes were due to the rapidity of his 
movements, which brought him on the enemy before they heard 
of his approach. He travelled sometimes a hundred miles a-day, 
reading or writing in his carriage, through countries without 
roads, and crossing rivers without bridges. No obstacle stopped 
him when he had a definite end in view. In battle he sometimes 
rode ; but he was more often on foot, bareheaded, and in a con- 
spicuous dress, that he might be seen and recognized. Again 
and again by his own efforts he recovered a day that was half lost. 
He once seized a panic-stricken standard-bearer, turned him 
round, and told him that he had mistaken the direction of the 
enemy. He never misled his army as to an enemy's strength ; 
or, if he misstated their numbers, it was only to exaggerate. 

Yet he was singularly careful of his soldiers. He allowed his 
legions rest, though he allowed none to himself. He rarely 
fought a battle at a disadvantage. He never exposed his men to 
unnecessary danger ; and the loss by wear and tear in the cam- 
paigns in Gaul was exceptionally and even astonishingly slight." 
When a gallant action was performed, he knew by whom it had 
been done ; and every soldier, however humble, might feel 
assured that if he deserved praise he would have it. The army 
was Caesar's family. When Sabinus was cut off, he allowed his 
beard to grow, and he did not shave it till the disaster was 
avenged. If Ouintus Cicero had been his own child, he could 
not have run greater personal risk to save him when shut up at 
Charleroy. In discipline he was lenient to ordinary faults, and 
not careful to make curious inquiries into such things. He liked 
his men to enjoy themselves. Military mistakes in his officers, 
too, he always endeavoured to excuse, never blaming them for 



CLESAR AS AN AUTHOR. 1 89 

misfortunes, unless there had been a defect of courage as well as 
judgment. Mutiny and desertion only he never overlooked. 
And thus no general was ever more loved by, or had greater 
power over, the army which served under him. 

His leniency to the Pompeian faction may have been politic, 
but it arose also from the disposition of the man. Cruelty origi- 
nates in fear, and Caesar was too indifferent to death to fear any 
thing. So far as his public action was concerned, he betrayed 
no passion save hatred of injustice ; and he moved through life 
calm and irresistible, like a force of Nature. 

Caesar as an Author. 

Cicero has said of Caesar's oratory, that he surpassed those who 
practised no other art. His praise of him as a man of letters is 
yet more delicately and gracefully emphatic. Most of his writ- 
ings are lost ; but their remain seven books of Commentaries on 
the wars in Gaul, and three books upon the Civil War. Of these 
it was that Cicero said, in an admirable image, that fools might 
think to improve on them, but that no wise man would try it; 
they were bare of ornament, the dress of style dispensed with, 
like an undraped human figure perfect in all its lines, as Nature 
made it. In his composition, as in his actions, Caesar is entirely 
simple. He indulges in no images, no laboured descriptions, no 
conventional reflections. His art is unconscious, as the highest 
art always is. The actual fact of things stands out as it really 
was, not as mechanically photographed, but interpreted by the 
calmest intelligence, and described with unexaggerated feeling. 
No military narrative has approached the excellence of the history 
of the war in Gaul. Nothing is written down which could be 
dispensed with ; nothing important is left untold ; while the inci- 
dents themselves are set off by delicate and just observations on 
human character. 

The books on the Civil War have the same simplicity and 
clearness, but a vein runs through them of strong if subdued 
emotion. They contain the history of a great revolution related 



190 JULIUS C^SAR. 

by the principal actor in it ; but no effort can be traced to set his 
own side in a favourable light, or to abuse or depreciate his ad- 
versaries. Caesar does not exult over his triumphs or parade the 
honesty of his motives. The facts are left to tell their own story ; 
and the gallantry and endurance of his own troops are not related 
with more feeling than the contrast of the confident hopes of the 
patrician leaders at Pharsalia and the luxury of their camp with 
the overwhelming disaster which fell upon them. About himself 
and his own exploits there is not one word of self-complacency 
or self-admiration. In his writings, as in his life, Caesar is 
always the same. — direct, straightforward, unmoved save by 
occasional tenderness, describing with unconscious simplicity 
how the work which had been forced upon him was accom- 
plished. He wrote with extreme rapidity in the intervals of 
other labour ; yet there is not a word misplaced, not a sign of 
haste anywhere, save that the conclusion of the Gallic war was 
left to be supplied by a weaker hand. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 



ACT I., SCENE I. 



Page 39. Enter Flavius, Marullus, &c. — In the original, the 
latter of these names is printed Murellus. So all through the play ex- 
cept in one instance, where it is Murrellus. 

P. 40. Mar. What trade, thou knave ? thou naughty knave, 
what trade ? — The original prefixes " Fla." to this speech; but the 
next two speeches prove, beyond question, that it belongs to Marullus. 
Corrected by Capell. 

P. 41. I meddle with no tradesman's matters, nor women's 
matters, but with awl. — The original has " but withal." Of course 
a quibble is intended between all and awl; and it is not clear which 
form ought to be used. As the quibble is addressed to the ear, it mat- 
ters little. — Some have found fault with tradesman's, and Farmer pro- 
posed to read "no trade, — maris matters, nor woman's." Walker 
observes, " Surely this is at least a step to the right reading." 



ACT I., SCENE II. 

P. 44. Stand you directly in Antonius' way. — Here, and gen- 
erally, the name is printed Antonio in the original. And so with sev- 
eral other names, Octavio, Flavio, and Claudio. Perhaps this grew, as 
Steevens thought, from the players being more used to Italian than to 
Roman terminations. 

191 



1 92 JULIUS CESAR. 

P. 47. No, Cassius ; for the eye sees not itself 

But by reflection from some other thing. — The original 
reads " by reflection, by some other things P Here by was doubtless 
repeated by mistake ; and singulars and plurals were very often con- 
founded. The first of these corrections was made by Pope ; the other, 
by Walker. 

P. 48. That you have no such mirror as will turn 

Your hidden worthiness into your eye. — The old text has 
■mirrors instead of mirror. Corrected by Walker. 

P. 48. Were I a common laugher, or did use 

To stale with ordinary oaths my love 

To every new protester. — So Pope. Instead of laugher . 
the original has Laughter ; which, after all, may possibly be right, in 
the sense of laughingstock. Some one has proposed " a common 
lover'"; and so, I have hardly any doubt, we ought to read. This 
would make common emphatic, and give it the sense of indiscriminate 
or promiscuous ; which quite accords with the context. 

P. 49. Set honour in one eye, and death i' the other, 

And I will look on death indifferently. — So Theobald and 
Warburton. In the second of these lines, the original has both instead 
of death. With both, the paralogism is surely too glaring, even for so 
loose-knit a genius as Brutus. 

P. 53. When could they say, till now, that talk'd of Rome, 
That her wide walls encompass'd but one man? — The 

original has walkes instead of walls. Perhaps the error grew from 
talk'd in the preceding line. Corrected by Rowe. 

P. 55. As we have seen him in the Capitol, 

Being cross'd in conference by some Senator. — So Walk- 
er. The original has Senators. 

P. 60. Ay, if I be alive, and your mind hold, and your dinner 
worth the eating. — Walker says, " Surely, ' and my mind hold.' 
Your is absurd. 1 ' Perhaps so; but I do not quite see it. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 1 93 



ACT I., SCENE III. 

P. 63. A common slave — you'd know him well by sight — 
Held up his left hand, &c. — The original reads "you know 
him," &c. The correction is proposed by Dyce. The propriety of it 
is, I think, evident. See foot-note 6. 

P. 63. Against the Capitol I met a lion, 

Who glared upon me, &c. — The original has glaz'd instead 
of glared. Hardly worth noting, perhaps. 

P. 64. When these prodigies 

Do so conjointly meet, let not men say, 
These are their reasons ; they are natural. — Collier's sec- 
ond folio changes reasons to seasons. Upon this reading Professor 
Craik comments thus : " This is their season might have been conceiv- 
able ; but who ever heard it remarked of any description of phenom- 
ena that these are, their seasons." Nevertheless I am pretty sure that 
similar phrases are current in common speech. And if any one were 
to say, " These parts of the year," or, " these months of Spring, 
are just the times" or " the seasons for such storms," where would be 
the absurdity of it? Besides, I do not see but that strict propriety of 
speech requires this is their reason, as much as this is their season. So 
I am apt to think that seasons is the right reading. See, however, foot- 
note 11. , 

P. 66. You look pale, and gaze, 

And put on fear, and case yourself in wonder, &c. — The 

old text has cast instead of case. The correction occurred indepen- 
dently to Mr. Swynfen Jervis and Mr. W. W. Williams, and is certainly 
favoured by the words put on fear. See foot-note 18. 

P. 66. Why old men fool, and children calculate. — The orig- 
inal reads "Why Old men, Fooles, and Children calculate." This 
makes the sense incoherent. The reading here adopted is coherent, 
and gives the right sense, — that old men in being foolish, and children 
in being considerate, are acting as much against nature as the fires and 



194 JULIUS CESAR. 

ghosts, the birds and beasts, are in what has just been related of them. 
The correction was proposed by Mitford. Lettsom says, " Read ' old 
men fool,' if this has not been noticed before." 

P. 67. To make them instruments of fear and warning 
Unto some monstrous state. Now could I, Casca, 
Name thee a man most like this dreadful night, &c. — So 

Capell. The original reads " Name to thee a man." 

P. 70. And the complexion of the element 

Is favour'd like the work we have in hand, 
Most bloody-fiery and most terrible. — In the second of 
these lines, the original has "Is Favors, like the Worke," &c. John- 
son's reading, "In Favour's like," is commonly adopted ; but I prefer 
Capell's. See foot-note 34. — In the third line, the old text has " Most 
bloodie, fierie." The correction is Walker's. 

P. 70. No, it is Casca ; one incorporate 

To bur attempt. — So Walker. The old text has Attempts. 
The confusion of plurals and singulars is especially frequent in this 
play. 

P. 70. Good Cinna, take this paper, 

And look you lay it in the praetor's chair, 
Where Brutus may best find it. — The original has "may 
but find it." The correction was proposed by Professor Craik. 

ACT II., SCENE I. 

P. 74. Is not to-morrow, boy, the Ides of March? — The orig- 
inal reads " the Jirst of March." This evidently cannot be right, though 
it may be what the Poet wrote : for in Plutarch, Life of Brutus, North's 
translation, he read as follows : " Cassius asked him if he were deter- 
mined to be in the Senate-house the first day of the month of March, 
because he heard say that Caesar's friends should move the Council 
that day, that Caesar should be called king by the Senate." Neverthe- 
less the whole ordering of dates in the play is clearly against the old 
reading ; so that Theobald's correction must be accepted. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 195 

P. 75. My ancestor did from the streets of Rome 

The Tarquin drive, &c. — So Dyce. The original has "my 
Ancestors." See page 53, note 39. 

P. 75. Speak, strike, redress ! — Am I entreated, then, 

To speak and strike ? — So Pope. The old text lacks then, 
which is needful to the metre, and helpful to the sense. 

P. 76. Sir, March is wasted fourteen days. — So Theobald. 
The original has "fifteene dayes," which cannot be right, as the Ides 
fell on the fifteenth of March, and this is the day before the Ides. 

P. 76. The genius and the mortal instruments 
Are then in Council; and the state of man, 
Like to a little kingdom, &c. — So the second folio. The 
original has " the state of a man." Both sense and metre are evi- 
dently against this reading ; and Walker points out many like instances 
of a interpolated. — I am all but certain that we ought to read con- 
flict instead of council. See foot-note 16. 

P. 77. For if thou pass, thy native semblance on, 

Not Erebus itself were dim enough, &c. — The original 
reads " For if thou path" &c. This has been defended by some, and 
several instances cited of the verb to path ; but those instances are 
quite beside the mark, as they do not use the word in any such sense 
as would justify its retention here. Coleridge proposed put, Walker 
strongly approves it, and Dyce adopts it. This is certainly strong au- 
thority, still I cannot reconcile myself to such a use of put. Surely a 
man cannot be rightly said to put on his native looks ; though he may 
well be said to put them off, or to keep them on. On the other hand, 
to pass may very well mean to walk abroad, or to pass the streets, 
which is the sense wanted here. Of course, with this reading, " thy 
native semblance on " is the ablative absolute ; " thy native semblance 
being on." 

P. 79. No, not an oath : if not the face of men, 

The sufferance of our souls, the time's abuse, &c. — There 
has been much stumbling at the word face here ; I hardly know why, 



196 JULIUS CESAR. 

Warburton reads fate ; Mason proposed faith, Malone faiths, which 
latter seems much the best of the three, as it would mean the plighted 
faith of the conspirators. See foot-note 24. 

P. 82. This shall mark 

Our purpose necessary, and not envious. — So Collier's 
second folio. The original has make instead of mark. The former 
can only be explained " make our purpose seem necessary," — a sense 
which the word will hardly bear, but which the context plainly requires. 

P. 83. Yet I do fear him ; 

For, in th' ingrafted love he bears to Caesar. — So Pope. 
The original lacks do. 

P. 85. He loves me well, and I have given him reason. — So 

Walker. The original has Reasons instead of reason. See foot-note 48. 

P. 87. And, upon my knees, 

I charge you, by my once commended beauty, &c. — So 
Pope and Hanmer ; Walker, also, says, " I think, charge." The orig- 
inal has " I charm you." 

ACT II., SCENE II. 

P. 91. The things that threaten me 

Ne'er look but on my back ; when they shall see 
The face of Caesar, they are vanished. — The original has 
threaten 'd instead of threaten, which seems fairly required by the con- 
text. Walker's correction. 

P. 91. Fierce fiery warriors fought upon the clouds, 

In ranks and squadrons and right form of war, 

Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol ; 

The noise of battle hurtled in the air ; 

Horses did neigh, and dying men did groan; &c. — In the 
first of these lines, the original has "fight upon the clouds," and, in the 
last, " Horses do neigh," — errors which the context readily corrects. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 197 

P. 93. We are two lions litter'd in one day, &c. — The original 
reads " We heare two lions." Theobald changed heare to were ; but 
are is evidently the right word ; and so Capell. 

P. 94. She dreamt to-night she saw my statua, 

Which, like a fountain, &c. — The original has statue. It 
appears that the word, though spelt statue, was sometimes used as a 
trisyllable, statue. But it is certain that the Latin form statua was 
often used till long after Shakespeare's time. See foot-note 6. 

P. 94. And these doth she apply for warnings and portents 
Of evils imminent; &c. — So Hanmer. The original has 
"And evils"; doubtless an accidental repetition of And from the line 
above. 

ACT II., SCENE IV. 

P. 99. Enter Artemidorus. — The original has " Enter the Sooth- 
sayer '." Rowe substitutes Artemidorus, and the change is thus justified 
by Tyrwhitt: "The introduction of the Soothsayer here is unneces- 
sary, and., I think, improper. All that he is made to say should be 
given to Artemidorus ; who is seen and accosted by Portia on his pas- 
sage from his first stand to one more convenient." 

P. 100. None that I know will be, much that I fear may chance. 
— Dyce suspects, as he well may, that the words may chance are " an 
interpolation." Certainly both sense and metre would be better with- 
out them. Pope omits them. 

ACT III., SCENE I. 

P. 102. If this be known, 

Cassius or Caesar never shall turn back, 

For I will slay myself. — White and Professor Craik substi- 
tute on for or ; very injudiciously, I think. The change was proposed 
by Malone, with the remark that " the next line strongly supports this 
conjecture"; whereupon Ritson comments as follows: "He must 
mean, it is presumed, in the Irish way ; as a mere English reader 



I9§ JULIUS CESAR. 

would conclude that the next line totally destroys it. Cassius says, if 
the plot be discovered, at all events either he or Caesar shall never 
return alive ; for, if the latter cannot be killed, he is determined to 
slay himself. The sense is as plain, as the alternative is just and 
necessary, or the proposed reading ignorant and absurd." 

P. 102. Popilius Lena speaks not of our purpose. — The orig- 
inal has purposes. But Cassius has just said, "I fear our purpose is 
discovered." Corrected by Theobald. 

P. 103. Casca. Are we all ready? — So Collier's second folio. 
The original makes this question the beginning of Caesar's next speech. 
Ritson thought it should be given to one of the conspirators ; and 
Cinna has just said, " Casca, you are the first that rears your hand." 

P. 104, And turn pre-ordinance and first decree 

Into the play of children. — The original has lane instead 
of play; a very palpable blunder. The correction is Mason's. John- 
son proposed law, and several have adopted that reading. But what 
is " the law of children "? To be sure, lane, in manuscript, looks more 
like law than like play; but I do not see that this amounts to much. 

P. 104. Met. Caesar, thou dost me wrong. 

Cces. Caesar did never wrong but with just cause, 
Nor without cause will he be satisfied. — I here restore a 
genuine piece of the Poet's text as preserved and authenticated to us 
by Ben Jonson. Instead of the three lines here quoted, the folio has 
only a line and a half, thus: " Know, Caesar doth not wrong, nor with- 
out cause will he be satisfied." Jonson, in his Discoveries, speaking 
of Shakespeare, has the following : " Many times he fell into those 
things could not escape laughter : as when he said in the person of 
Caesar, one speaking to him, ' Caesar, thou dost me wrong,' he replied, 
1 Caesar did never wrong but with just cause,' and such like ; which 
were ridiculous." Jonson's personal and professional relations with 
Shakespeare gave him every possible opportunity of knowing that 
whereof he speaks. But, as compared with his great friend, he was 
something of a purist in language ; and his censure in this case has long 
seemed to me rather captious. At all events Shakespeare repeatedly 



CRITICAL NOTES. 1 99 

uses wrong, both noun and verb, in the sense of to hurt, to offend, 
to cause pain. See foot-note 10. He seems to have been acquainted 
with the etymological relationship of wrong, wring, and wrest. In the 
text, Metellus uses wrong in the ordinary sense ; Caesar, in the sense 
of to hurt, to wring, or to punish. Besides, the passage, as it stands 
in the folio, carries in its face evident marks of mutilation : the words, 
"Caesar doth not wrong," &c, come in abruptly, and without any 
proper occasion: hence Gifford justly supposed the Poet to have writ- 
ten as in the text. As given in the folio, the word satisfied also seems 
quite out of place ; at least Caesar has no apparent reason for using it. 
But, in the passage as censured by Jonson, that word comes in natu- 
rally, and in perfect dialogical order ; the meaning being, " Caesar did 
never punish without just cause, nor without cause will he be satisfied 
in the matter of punisJwient, or so as to revoke the sentence" How, 
then, came the passage to be as the folio gives it ? This question of 
course cannot be definitively answered. As Jonson had some hand in 
getting up the folio, it is nowise unlikely that he may have made the 
alteration ; though it would seem as if he might have seen that the 
change just spoilt the Poet's dramatic logic. Or it may well be that 
the Editors, not understanding the two senses of wrong, struck out the 
words but zvith just cause, and. then altered the language at other 
points in order to salve the metre. Either of these is, I think, much 
more probable than that Shakespeare himself made the change in 
order to " escape laughter." At all events, Jonson is better authority 
as to how Shakespeare wrote the passage, than the folio is, that 
Shakespeare himself made the change. — Such being the case, I can 
offer no apology for the reading given in the text. I have already 
cited Gifford's opinion in the matter. Halliwell has in substance ex- 
pressed a like judgment. And Dr. Ingleby avows it as his conviction, 
that the line which Jonson and his fellow-censors " laughed at was and 
is unimpeachable good sense, and that it is the editor's duty to use 
Jonson's censure for the purpose of correcting the folio reading." 

P. 108. Casca. Why, he that cuts off twenty years of life 

Cuts off so many years of fearing death. — Some modern 
editors transfer this speech to Cassius ; but why? Surely it is more 
characteristic of Casca than of Cassius. And I am the more unwilling 
to take it from Casca, as it is the last he utters. 



200 JULIUS CAESAR. 

P. 108. How many ages hence 

Shall this our lofty scene be acted o'er 

In States unborn and accents yet unknown ! — The orig- 
inal has over instead of o'er, and State instead of States. Walker says, 
" The flow requires o'er. Over for o'er is a frequent error of the folio." 
The other correction was made in the second folio. 

P. 108. That now on Pompey's basis lies along. — So the sec- 
ond folio. The first has lye instead of lies. 

P. in. To you our swords have leaden points, Mark Antony : 
Our arms in strength of amity, and our hearts 
Of brothers'Uemper, do receive you in, &c. — The orig- 
inal reads, " Our armes in strength of malice ",* from which no con- 
gruent sense can possibly be gathered. Many other changes have 
been made or proposed, the best of which hitherto given is, I think, 
Capell's, — " our swords have leaden points, Our arms no strength of 
malice ;" &c. But the logic and rhythm of the passage seem to re- 
quire that the words " Our arms," &c, should be construed with what 
follows, not with what precedes ; for which cause I have never been 
fully satisfied with Capell's reading. The reading in the text is Sing- 
er's. Collier has lately proposed " strength of manhood'' '; which seems 
to me exceedingly apt and happy ; but amity, if not better in itself, 
involves less of literal change, and has more support from other pas- 
sages of Shakespeare. So in Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 6: "That 
which is the strength of their amity shall prove the immediate author 
of their variance." 

P. 112. And here thy hunters stand, 

Sign'd in thy spoil, and crimson'd in thy death. — So 
Pope, Theobald, and Collier's second folio. Instead of death, the orig- 
inal has Lethee, which is commonly printed lethe. Capell says that 
lethe here is " a term used by hunters, to signify the blood shed by a 
deer at its fall, with which it is still a custom to mark those who come 
in at the death." 

P. 114. And that we are contented Caesar shall 

Have all due rites and lawful ceremonies. — So Pope, 
Walker, and Collier's second folio. The origianl has true instead of due. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 201 

P. 115. Woe to the hands that shed this costly blood! — The 

original has hand instead of hands. But Antony says to the stabbers 
a little before, " whilst your purpled hands do reek," &c. 

P. 115. A curse shall light upon the limbs of men. — It is 

quite amazing how much has been done, to help this innocent passage : 
as changes made and proposed, in order to get rid of limbs, we have 
kind, line, loins, lives, times, tombs, sons, and minds. If any change be 
necessary, I should say souls, which, beginning with the long s, might 
easily be misprinted limbs. But what need of change ? See foot- 
note 40. 

P. 116. Passion, I see, is catching; for mine eyes, 
Seeing those beads of sorrow stand in thine, 
Begin to water. — The original has from instead of for, and 
Began instead of Begin ; — palpable errors, both. 

ACT PL, SCENE II. 

P. 1 19. Caesar's better parts 

Shall now be crown'd in Brutus. — So Pope. The original 
lacks now. 

P. 119. Do grace to Caesar's corpse, and grace his speech, 
Tending to Caesar's glory. — The original has "Caesar's Glo- 
ries." Corrected by Walker. Brutus has just said "his glory not 
extenuated." 

P. 122. If thou consider rightly of the matter, 
Caesar has had great wrong. 

3 Cit. Has he not, masters? — The 

original lacks not. Inserted by Professor Craik. Walker says, " Per- 
haps we should read ' Has he, my masters ? ' " 

P. 126. For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, &c. — 

So the second folio. The first has writ instead of wit. 

P. 129. I heard 'em say, Brutus and Cassius 

Are rid like madmen through the gates of Rome. — The 

original reads " I heard him say." 



202 JULIUS CiESAR. 



ACT III., SCENE III. 

P. 129. I dreamt to-night that I did feast with Caesar, 

And things unlucky charge my fantasy. — So Warburton. 
The original has unluckily instead of unlucky. Walker says, " undoubt- 
edly unlucky" See foot-note I. 

ACT IV., SCENE I. 

P. 133. A barren-spirited fellow; one who feeds 

On objects, arts, and imitations, 

Which, out of use and staled, &c. — Theobald and, after 
him, Dyce read " abject oris and imitations." This is, to me, little less 
than shocking. It is true, Shakespeare uses both abject and orts ; and 
I presume we all know the meaning of both those words : but is it 
credible that he could have been guilty of such a combination as 
abject orts ? Besides, does not the word imitations show that he had 
in mind works of art? And why may not objects stand for any com- 
mon objects of interest or curiosity? The Clarendon edition prints 
" abjects, orts and imitations " ; which is certainly no improvement on 
Theobald's reading. As to the objections urged against the old read- 
ing, I can but say they are to me only not quite so absurd as the 
changes they are made to cover. See foot-note 7. 

P. 134. Therefore let our alliance be combined, 

Our best friends made, our means stretch'd out. — So the 

first folio, with the exception of the word out. The second folio makes 
a full line, such as it is, thus: "Our best friends made, and our best 
means stretch'd out." Neither reading is satisfactory, and modern 
editors are, I believe, about equally divided between the two. 

ACT IV., SCENE II. 

P. 135. Your master, Pindarus, 

In his own charge, or by ill officers, &c. — So Hanmer and 
Warburton. The old text has change instead of charge. The latter 
word, it seems to me, does not give the right sense ; and we have 
many instances of change and charge misprinted for each other. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 203 

P. 136. Lucius, do you the like ; and let no man 

Come to our tent till we have done our conference. — 
Lucilius and Titinius, guard the door. — Here, in the orig- 
inal, the names Lucius and Lucilius got shuffled each into the other's 
place ; and then, to cure the metrical defect in the third line, that line 
was made to begin with Let. Modern editors generally have rectified 
the metre of the first line by striking out you, — " Lucilius, do the 
like," &c. But this leaves things quite wrong in regard to the per- 
sons ; for Lucilius is an officer of rank ; yet he is thus put to doing 
the work of what we call an orderly, while Lucius, the orderly, or 
errand-boy, is set in the officer's place. We are indebted to Professor 
Craik for rectifying this piece of disorder. — In the third line, the 
original reads " guard our door." Probably an accidental repetition 
of our from the line above. Corrected by Rowe. 



ACT IV., SCENE III. 

P. 137. Whereas my letters, praying on his side 

Because I knew the man, were slighted off. — Instead 
of Whereas, the original has Wherein, which cannot easily be made to 
yield a fitting sense. 

P. 137. And let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself 

Are much condemn'd to have an itching palm. — So 
Capell. The original is without And at the beginning of the speech. 
Other editors have supplied Yet. Some such insertion is fairly required 
for the prosody. 

P. 138. I had rather be a dog, and bay the Moon, 
Than such a Roman. 

Cass. Brutus, bay not me, &c. — Instead 

of the second bay, the original reads baite, which has the same mean- 
ing indeed ; but probably, as Dyce says, " the author intended Cassius 
to echo the word used by Brutus." The correction is Theobald's. 

P. 138. I am a soldier, ay, 

Older in practice, abler than yourself, &c. — So Steevens. 
The original reads "lama Souldier, /," &c. The affirmative particle 



204 JULIUS CESAR. 

ay is there very often printed /; and such I think is the case here ; 
for the repetition of the pronoun / seems awkward and unnatural. 

P. 140. \. For mine own part, 

I shall be glad to learn of abler men. — So Collier's second 
folio. The original has " of Noble men." As Cassius has in fact used 
the word abler, there can, I think, be little scruple about the correction. 

P. 142. A flatterer's would not, though they did appear 

As huge as high Olympus. — So Collier's second folio. The 
original has " though they do appear." 

P. 143. Yes, Cassius ; and henceforth, 

When you are over-earnest with your Brutus, &c. — The 

original reads "and from henceforth." Herefrom is palpably redun- 
dant both in metre and in sense. Shakespeare probably wrote from 
hence, and then corrected the latter word into henceforth ; and both 
got printed together. Capell omits from. 

P. 148. Come on refresh'd, new-aided, and encouraged. — So 
Dyce and Singer. The original has new added instead of new-aided. 
Collier's second folio has " new-hearted." 

P. 149. Lucius, my gown! — Farewell now, good Messala: — 
Good night, Titinius : &c. — The original is without now. 
Some such insertion is required for the metre. Hanmer printed "Now, 
farewell," and Walker says, " Perhaps fare you well" 

P. 150. Varro and Claudius! — Here, and again afterwards, in 
the text, as also in the stage-directions, the original has Varrus and 
Claudio. There is, I believe, no* doubt that the right names are Clau- 
dius and Varro. As before noted, Flavius and Qctavius are repeat- 
edly misprinted Flavio and Octavio. 

ACT V., SCENE I. 

P. 156. Whilst damned Casca, like a cur, behind 

Struck Caesar on the neck. O flatterers! — The original 
has " O you Flatterers." Reasons of prosody caused you to be struck 
out long ago ; but some recent editors restore it. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 205 

P. 158. Be thou my witness that against my will, 

As Pompey was, I am compell'd to set 

Upon one battle all our liberties. — The original inverts the 
order of / am. But " be witness that am I compell'd " is not an Eng- 
lish construction. Corrected by Walker. 

P. 158. Coming from Sardis, on our foremost ensign 

Two mighty eagles fell ; &c. — Instead of foremost, the orig- 
inal has former, which is said to have been sometimes used in the 
sense of foremost But the passage cited as proving such a usage 
seems to me irrelevant. The correction is Rowe's. 

ACT V., SCENE III. 

P. 167. Thou last of all the Romans, fare thee well! — Instead 
of Thou, the original has The. The old abbreviations of the and 
thou were often confounded. Corrected by Rowe. 

P. 167. Come, therefore, and to Thassos send his body: 

His funerals shall not be in our camp, 

Lest it discomfort us. — The original has Thassus for Thas- 
sos. Corrected by Theobald. Properly it should be Thasos ; but 
North's Plutarch has it Thassos. — Some have changed funerals to 
funeral ; also, in the next scene but one, hilts to hilt. But funerals 
and hilts are old forms of the singular in those words. See page 164, 
note 6. 

ACT V., SCENE IV. 

P. 168. I'll tell the news. Here comes the general. — The 
original reads " He tell thee newes." Pope's correction. 

ACT V., SCENE V. 

P. 172. I shall have glory by this losing day, 

More than Octavius and Mark Antony 

By their vile conquest shall attain unto. — The original 
reads " By this vile conquest." Walker proposes their, and adds, 
" The repetition seems awkward and un-Shakespearian." 



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WEBSTER. Sect. II. Life, Contents, and pp. 421-552 
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COLERIDGE AND BURNS. Preface, Contents, 504-614 
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HUDSON'S TEXT-BOOK OP POETRY. From 
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